#526 - Isaac Haxton

[0] The Joe Rogan experience.

[1] Train by day, Joe Rogan, podcast by night, all day.

[2] All right.

[3] Isaac Haxton, aka Ike.

[4] We're going to go with Ike.

[5] Is that your friends?

[6] Is that what your friends call you?

[7] Yeah.

[8] I want to be your friend.

[9] All right.

[10] Let's go with Ike.

[11] Let's go with Ike.

[12] One of the things, you are a big -time poker player, travel all over the world, and there's a lot of people on my message board that are big poker fans and very excited to have you on the podcast.

[13] One of the things they asked me to differentiate, because I bring this up all the time, that a lot of poker players are gamblers.

[14] And a lot of poker players are kind of degenerate gamblers.

[15] But poker is not really a gambling thing.

[16] It's more of a game of intelligence and a game of information and a game of strategy.

[17] Is that true?

[18] Yeah.

[19] Well, it's gambling in the sense that on any given day, you.

[20] win or lose money.

[21] If you're playing for high stakes, you want to lose a bunch of money.

[22] But it's not gambling in the sense that it's outside of your control.

[23] It's not like going to the roulette wheel and saying, I'm in a red sort of mood.

[24] Let's bet on red and see what happens.

[25] So it's gambling in the sense that there's money at stake.

[26] It's not gambling in the sense that you are submitting yourself to chance and just seeing what happens.

[27] How did you get involved with, well, first of all, you're, what are you, 28 years old?

[28] Yeah.

[29] 28 years old, and you are a world traveling poker player.

[30] I mean, that is, first of all, awesome.

[31] I love it.

[32] It's been a lot of fun.

[33] I'm sure.

[34] Congratulations on really being able to craft that kind of a life, because I think that's excellent.

[35] It's really cool.

[36] So how did you get started and how did you make this leap to becoming this you know, internationally known professional.

[37] Well, I've been sort of an obsessed game player my entire life.

[38] I started playing chess when I was four.

[39] I started playing pretty seriously in tournaments when I was like six.

[40] I played chess pretty seriously from six to maybe 13 or so.

[41] I was never really great at chess.

[42] Like, probably my greatest accomplishment as a chess player is eighth place in the New York state, third grade and under tournament.

[43] but so I played chess seriously for a while around 13 I reached this point in my chess career where it got really boring where I was just really solidly the second best player in the county and every time I'd go to a chess tournament I knew it was going to happen I was going to beat all these kids I was a lot better than I was going to play this dude Nick in the final and I was going to lose why would Nick beat you it was better than me he studied harder and he had a sure sharper chess mind than me. Something that I never really got past in chess was that it's really easy to make one small mistake and end the game.

[44] And poker is a little more forgiving of slight oversights.

[45] Like in chess, you think through a move, it looks pretty good, you make the move, and then right after you made the move, oh fuck, Bishop takes night and I lose.

[46] and poker is not quite the same.

[47] In poker, you make a comparable blunder and you bet the river and you think this is a pretty good bet.

[48] You're going to beat a bit more than half the hands to call you and then you think, oh shit, actually, he can also have played King Jack of Spades this way.

[49] This was a slightly bad bet rather than a slightly good bet.

[50] And it doesn't end your tournament to have made a slightly...

[51] wrong play in poker the same way it does in chess.

[52] So I think my brain is set up better to be an extremely good poker player than an extremely good chess player.

[53] Would it be a relevant analogy to say that playing poker is like more of a game where you restart every time?

[54] Yeah.

[55] Whereas chess is like a sword fight.

[56] Like you get one chance to not get stabbed.

[57] If you get your arm cut off, gonna die yeah that that is actually a pretty good analogy you so when you play poker um are you the type of guy like when you like read a person and you have an idea that you have a big advantage will you then take a big chance will you then gamble or you are are you a conservative calculated sort of a guy um you don't want to give up your hand he doesn't want to tell people how he thinks i see what he's doing he's like i see what you're doing you're doing you're playing chess right now.

[58] You're going back and forth.

[59] Hmm, I should maybe shut the fuck over there.

[60] No, I'd say I'm more in the former category.

[61] I mean...

[62] So you're more of a gambler guy?

[63] In poker, you have to make the best of the edges that you're given.

[64] You aren't presented with constant unlimited opportunities to get an advantage.

[65] So when you are presented with one yet you have to so there's a certain amount of courage that's involved in playing the game of poker it's not something that you chip away at necessarily it's something that when the opportunity presents itself and you believe that you have it do you have like a green light that goes off in your head or do you have an instinct that you sort of rely on in terms of like the risk management part of what you're talking about a lot of that is actually outside of the process of making decisions within a hand.

[66] So, like, in terms of risk management, a lot of that is, like, managing the stakes you play relative to how much money you have.

[67] So if I'm playing a cash game and it's a game where you buy in for $5 ,000, that's a game where losing one hand for the maximum amount isn't going to ruin my life, isn't going to have a big impact on anything.

[68] So in that context, I can go ahead and risk the full $5 ,000 that's in front of me on a half a percent edge because that's how you make money playing poker.

[69] You identify an edge and you exploit it.

[70] So in terms of, like, courage and risk management, the, like, risk management thing comes in before you're actually playing a hand.

[71] and then in the course of playing a hand, you have already made decisions that put you in a position to be comfortable taking the maximum amount of risk that you could be confronted with after that point.

[72] Is what I'm saying making sense there?

[73] Yes, totally makes sense.

[74] So you're more inclined to take a big chance if you're betting a small amount of money.

[75] That's what you're saying.

[76] For the small amount of money going in.

[77] Now, when you go, what's the biggest buy -in that you've ever had to play?

[78] Uh, for a tournament, it would be a million dollar buy -in.

[79] Oh, Jesus, Louisa.

[80] Wow.

[81] So, um, when you do that, um, I see you're sponsored by pokerstars.

[82] Um, does poker stars pay for a portion of that?

[83] Did they give you a piece of the action?

[84] How does that work?

[85] Uh, poker stars does not.

[86] But what I, well, part of my contract with poker stars does involve getting a certain amount of money per year that is earmarked toward buying into poker tournaments.

[87] But they're not like explicitly staking me in the poker tournaments.

[88] It's just my compensation for representing the company.

[89] So your compensation is essentially up to your management discretion.

[90] Yeah.

[91] So when I play something like a million dollar buy in poker tournament, what I do is I take on investors who are typically other professional poker players, and they buy shares of me in the tournament.

[92] They put up a fraction of the buy -in, and if I win, they get a fraction of the winnings.

[93] Oh, that's fascinating.

[94] So you guys kind of back each other.

[95] Yeah.

[96] Hmm.

[97] So if you go into a poker tournament and there's maybe 20 guys, it's conceivable that you and the guy you're playing against in the finals have a piece of each other.

[98] Yeah.

[99] That happens somewhat often.

[100] Hmm.

[101] That's a big thing in the world of pool but pool they do it in billiards professional pool because they don't make as much money and so they they you know they kind of like make a saver that's what we call it so like say if you and i were to play in the finals and it was a major pool tournament it depends on the agreement but we might make a 50 50 or 60 40 split so we would play our best but you would know that no matter what worst case scenario even if you lost you were going to get 40 % of the purse right the same thing also happens in poker tournaments.

[102] In addition to what I was describing where people sell action before the tournament starts, there are also often deals made toward the end of the tournament.

[103] So I was recently playing a tournament in Las Vegas, and when we got down to three players left, it was me and two other guys who I think are also really strong poker players.

[104] And we agreed that rather than play it out, we are going to just divide up the remaining prize money according to how many chips each of us have and call it a day.

[105] Wow.

[106] Does that bother people?

[107] Does there an ethical quandary involved in that?

[108] I would say there's a vocal minority of people who are bothered by that and that most people are not bothered by it at all.

[109] That's something you see happen everywhere from the very highest stakes tournaments in the world to a weekly $20 tournament that at some point people will agree to a chop.

[110] It can be a partial chop where they just take out some of the money like the saver sort of thing you were talking about or it can be a complete chop where they just split up the prize pool and call it today.

[111] But the vocal minority, what is their argument?

[112] Like, what do they say?

[113] They say, you guys are ruining it.

[114] This is like, poker's supposed to be about gambling and chance and that's where the excitement comes in.

[115] That or it's, or it's, It's supposed to be a pure competition.

[116] It's not supposed to be about this deal -making.

[117] It's supposed to be you go in, you compete.

[118] The best or luckiest player wins, and that's the guy who gets all the money.

[119] Now, the vocal minority, are they the spectators?

[120] Are they the actual players themselves?

[121] Are they the commentators?

[122] Are they the guys who write?

[123] More often, it's the spectators and the media than the people who are actually in there playing on a day -to -day basis.

[124] Same thing with billiards.

[125] Yeah.

[126] that's interesting so the spectators feel like it's not as exciting for them is that the idea that hmm so they want to see one guy win a million bucks and one guy win dog shit yeah and i mean that that's understandable right like i guess yeah i guess yeah i don't know man i mean uh i think i'm too close to stuff like this to see it objectively because i'm friends with so many pool players and because um i don't you know i think people should be compensated I hate the idea of a winner take -all thing, you know, because like if two, like there was a big pool tournament called the tournament of champions, and every year the winner gets a good, for pool, I think it's like 50 grand, it's not much for poker, but everybody else gets dog shit, you know, so.

[127] So of course people do this, safe when they get heads up.

[128] Yeah, they definitely chop it up.

[129] So the people that are the commentators and the spectators, like you say a vocal minority, is it only small percentage?

[130] of the commentators and spectators?

[131] It's hard to tell because the people who don't object aren't saying anything about it.

[132] But I would guess, yeah, it's only a small percentage.

[133] Now, there's no rules against it, though, right?

[134] It's not like something you guys have to do on the sneak tip.

[135] There are some tournament venues that won't enforce the chop, which means at the majority of tournament venues, you say to the tournament director, we've agreed to this chop pay each of us this amount of money at a minority of venues you can't do that you say that the tournament director says i don't want to hear it you have to play the tournament out and then you do it you're in your own and then you have to do it on your own and then you have to trust the other people at the final table to honor the agreement and turn around and hand you the cash right after the tournament has anybody ever not honored that agreement very rare it very rare i can't think of i can't think of a circumstance where it was like a hand -shay deal chop at the final table and then somebody just didn't pay.

[136] I couldn't, that would be a disastrous thing for that person.

[137] There's been a handful of cases where somebody has made a backing deal and then refused to pay out their backer.

[138] Whoa.

[139] There was a really high profile one with the guy who won the World Series of Poker main event several years ago.

[140] Jamie Gold got taken to court by a guy who claimed to have a backing arrangement with him and had, like, voicemails saying, yeah, I'm giving you this amount of money for 50 % of your winnings.

[141] And then after the fact, Jamie Gold was like, nope.

[142] Why did he say that?

[143] I don't know.

[144] He was a pretty weird guy.

[145] Was?

[146] Is he dead?

[147] No, still is.

[148] He's a pretty weird guy who I have considerably less exposure to lately because he has more or less moved on from the poker world.

[149] Well, Jesus Christ, he won the World Series of.

[150] Poker.

[151] Won the World Series of Poker main event, had a big dispute with a guy who claimed to be entitled to a big share of his winnings.

[152] And then just faded out of poker because of that?

[153] Not because of that.

[154] Lost back a lot of what he'd won playing in tournaments and cash games, and just decide fuck this game.

[155] Pretty much, yeah.

[156] How do you get to...

[157] I just would imagine that if you got so good that you win the World Series of poker, that that's like a very profitable way to to spend your time well think that's the thing is that not everyone who wins the World Series of Poker main event is an excellent poker player it's one it's one it's one tournament with on the order of 6 ,000 players and the best player in the tournament is maybe 10 times as likely to win it as the worst player in the tournament but it's one tournament so it's possible that A middling tournament player can win the World Series of poker.

[158] Happens all the time.

[159] Wow, I never knew that.

[160] Oh, yeah.

[161] That's crazy.

[162] See, that never happens in pool.

[163] No. Yeah, you're not going to beat, like, Earl Strickland in the finals if you suck.

[164] That's so crazy.

[165] And that's why you can play poker for high stakes, and it's pretty hard to find a high stakes pool game without some careful handicapping.

[166] Yeah.

[167] Wow.

[168] I never knew that.

[169] That's fascinating.

[170] I always felt like the guy who won was the best.

[171] best guy or there's like a handful of best guys and they swap positions and it's about who's focusing more no i mean this year a guy made the world series of poker final table for two years in a row that hasn't happened in about 10 years oh that's interesting i need to pay attention more in this poker shit um now what about gambling in Vegas do they put a line on who's going to win uh yeah you can make you can make bets on the outcome of the tournament, but they only, whereas for like a football game, if the giants are playing the Falcons, you can bet the money line and you can get two to one on the Giants if they're the underdog or lay two to one and take the Falcons.

[172] for poker tournaments the bookmakers are not that confident that they know the right prices and they only put up one side if you want to bet on one guy to win the tournament they'll give you a price but it's a really bad price and you're going to lose making that bet and you can't take the other side oh okay I see betting on the outcome of poker tournaments is a pretty small market yeah because that's another thing they tried with pool but they took the one time they did it in Vegas they had this big tournament and this one guy Mike LeBron who's an excellent player but was like the 40 to one underdog so they all dumped to Mike LeBron they all bet on Mike LeBron and Mike LeBron won't up winning the whole tournament and then the you know of course Vegas is like all right you fucking short -sighted assholes we're done you know oh the 40 to one guy won and everybody's missing balls they should never fucking miss and it was just so ugly yeah that I mean that's a potential issue anytime you're betting on the outcome of a sporting event that it could be fixed.

[173] Especially a sporting event where the players don't make so much money.

[174] That's the thing is when you get to the small market stuff like pool where the players aren't making a lot and you can bet more on the outcome of the tournament than the tournament itself is worth, that's obviously creating a bad situation.

[175] So if World Series of poker comes along and Vegas puts up a line, I could bet on you to win the whole thing.

[176] Yeah.

[177] But that's basically it.

[178] I couldn't bet.

[179] on you against individual players and individual games?

[180] Maybe some of the smaller online bookmakers you could get some prop bets on like who will be in the tournament longer, me or Phil Ivey, that type of thing.

[181] Right.

[182] But betting on the outcome of poker tournaments is real small.

[183] Like if you wanted to bet, they'd probably let you bet maybe a couple hundred dollars.

[184] Now, a lot of these poker players, oh, you couldn't bet like 50 grand or something crazy.

[185] No. Now, a lot of these poker players are, like, serious, crazy gamblers.

[186] Like, they'll gamble on golf and they don't even play golf.

[187] Like, they'll do shit like that, like a million dollars on a game of golf.

[188] Who's, like, the nuttiest when it comes to that stuff?

[189] Um, that's a good question.

[190] Phil Ivy does a lot of nutty shit with that, right?

[191] Phil Ivy comes to mind, but the thing with him is he's a real sharp guy when it comes to betting on stuff.

[192] He is not as crazy as he'd want you to.

[193] think um like with golf for example he started playing higher and higher stakes golf with people and was losing everybody's like phil's terrible we all got a gamble on golf with phil he was dumping he wasn't dumping he was legitimately bad but then what he did was he went and got coached by tiger woods's coach and got really fucking good and came back and played for huge stakes against a couple of guys and smash them.

[194] Wow.

[195] And just midway through the round, they're like, this is bullshit.

[196] What's going on?

[197] When did Phil get good?

[198] So how did he do it on the sneak tip?

[199] Did he put like a mask on and fucking, I mean, everybody knows what Phil Ivy looks like if you're a pool player, or a poker player rather?

[200] What would you need to be sneaky about?

[201] Like where he practiced?

[202] Oh yeah, I mean, I guess he like took a vacation to Hawaii or something.

[203] Oh, okay.

[204] Wouldn't it take more than, like, one vacation?

[205] Must be a really sharp dude.

[206] And, like, a month -long playing every day.

[207] Yeah, and then came back and kicks them.

[208] See, I don't, the golf thing is so bizarre to me. I would think there's so many variables involved in golf that, like, the courses themselves are variable, the wind is variable.

[209] There's so much going on, like, figuring out where the ball lies, and then trying to figure out the rolls of the hill and all.

[210] all that jazz and trying to get, I mean...

[211] Yeah, it seems pretty damn complicated.

[212] I haven't played a really long time, but...

[213] Yeah, the mechanics of it seem very difficult to learn, and I understand, like, that coaching could help that, but even just the variables...

[214] Like, when a guy like Tiger Woods was just dominating everybody, like winning like crazy, it just defied my imagination, because I was always like, how could this one guy figure out this weird game, like, where there's so many variables, so much better than everybody else?

[215] It's like, what could it possibly be?

[216] Yeah.

[217] Is it feel?

[218] Is it touch?

[219] Is it, you know, like, what is it that's allowing him to see the roles of the hills?

[220] And then how does it all go away with one divorce?

[221] That's the really crazy part.

[222] That's the craziest of the crazy.

[223] I read this study that on hedge fund managers that by far the most predictive variable of the performance of a hedge fund is whether or not the manager is currently going through a divorce.

[224] Oh yeah Because then your life Just goes into a turmoil Yeah Hmm Or if your wife's a cunt You get out of that divorce And you just fucking free And your thoughts are clear It really just depends Right Depends on whether or not It's a good divorce Whether you're not you want it Yeah I mean even if you want it I bet it's still A pretty big disruption Depends man I've seen both sides I've seen horrible horrible Divorces where You know the guy's just destroyed and usually it's financial the financial stress of divorce is really for for a person who's never been through it or never seen someone go through it it's it's like you're being attacked by aliens that you can't see and they're stealing money from you and just like every second of every day thousands of dollars are leaving your bank account and you're watching yourself go broke you're watching years of your life all the work you put in I had a good friend that I've talked about it on the podcast before, but not only did he get divorced, but his wife calculated and planned it where she went to every good defense attorney or every good divorce attorney in town and consulted with them before she decided to pick one.

[225] So that when the husband found out that she was divorcing him, he couldn't get a good attorney because they had already talked to her.

[226] So it was some sort of a conflict of interest.

[227] That's pretty diabolical.

[228] She's as diabolical as it gets.

[229] Not only did she do that, but because they were together for so long, he had to pay for her attorney because she didn't work.

[230] And he has to pay her for essentially the rest of her life because they were married for more than 12 years.

[231] California has some wacky laws.

[232] So the only way it'll be different is if she remarries, which of course she never would, because she would lose her sweet paycheck that she gets her month.

[233] I watched this guy like age 10 years in two.

[234] In two years he probably aged 10 and just was pulling his fucking hair out and going crazy and it was never over.

[235] I was like, are you out yet?

[236] Is it over yet?

[237] It's like, no, no, no, no. She's renegotiating.

[238] She's changing the term.

[239] She's doing it.

[240] And she was doing it because he had to pay for her lawyer as well.

[241] So she just dragged it out as long as possible.

[242] She dragged it out for almost two years.

[243] This poor guy got destroyed.

[244] So for him, yeah, I would fucking.

[245] I wouldn't bet on him playing golf That guy would be fucking knocking balls into the treetops And screaming and attacking birds with his clubs It's devastating for people And when you know And women want to know why guys don't get divorced Maybe they know somebody like that You know Or Tiger Woods Yeah Poor bastard Not really though right He's still fine Yeah I think he'll make it Yeah he'll make it He's just he's not Tiger Woods anymore, right?

[246] How many golf tournaments has he won since the divorce?

[247] I don't really follow golf, but I don't think it's many.

[248] Why, it's so weird.

[249] Do you follow it, Jamie?

[250] Yeah, he's won a few.

[251] He's recently coming back from an injury right now.

[252] I just saw something the other day.

[253] They say he's got about 10 years left in his career to catch Jack Nicholson.

[254] How do you get an injury playing golf?

[255] Back.

[256] I mean, there's a lot of torque in that swing.

[257] I can see.

[258] throwing out your back.

[259] Fucking pussies.

[260] Jesus Christ.

[261] You play golf.

[262] I would surely get injured playing golf.

[263] I'd just hit myself at the club.

[264] Well, that's, if you knew what you're doing, I bet you wouldn't.

[265] So, you're 28 years old.

[266] How long have you been a professional poker player?

[267] I've been playing seriously and making money at it about 10 years, filing taxes as a professional gambler since I was 18.

[268] Wow.

[269] I was in school and only sort of playing part -time.

[270] for the first few of those years.

[271] So six to ten years, depending how you count.

[272] So you were doing it through college?

[273] Yeah.

[274] And at one point in time, when you were in college and you were in the middle of some stupid course, you didn't really give a fuck about, where you're like, you know what, I think I could be a goddamn professional poker player.

[275] Definitely.

[276] That's what it was?

[277] Second semester of my junior year.

[278] Poker was going great.

[279] School was not.

[280] I was studying computer science, which at one point I was pretty good.

[281] I thought this is the thing for me. I'm going to get my undergrad degree in computer science.

[282] I'm going to go to grad school, do some more computer science and become a professor, work in research, something like that.

[283] I thought that was my career.

[284] Second semester of my junior year, this thing started happening to me where I'd go to the computer lab and sit down to do a project and an hour would go by and I'd just still be staring at a blank screen.

[285] I just hit a wall.

[286] I couldn't do it anymore.

[287] Wow, what was that?

[288] I don't know exactly.

[289] I think it was some subconscious part of my brain realizing ahead of the more conscious and willful part that this was not what I wanted to do long term.

[290] That's fascinating.

[291] So you had a passion for it at one point in time, or at least an interest in it.

[292] Yeah.

[293] And was it just that the passion and the interest for poker sort of overcame it?

[294] that it became an option, that it became like...

[295] I think that was probably only a small part of it.

[296] I think that even if I hadn't found poker and decided to make a career of that, that I would have made myself get through undergrad computer science and somewhere around grad school or early into a career doing that, I would have realized it wasn't doing it for me. Yeah, that's something that some kids do when they're young and they're starting to try to pick a career.

[297] They look at something that they think they can do.

[298] Yeah.

[299] And then once they start doing it, they go, this is not what I want to do, though.

[300] Well, shit, you're 18.

[301] You get to school, and they tell you pick a major.

[302] Yeah, how crazy is that?

[303] And, like, I took an econ class, a math class, a computer science class, and a cognitive science class, my first semester of college.

[304] I was like, I really don't like the math class.

[305] The econ's kind of boring.

[306] I don't really think there's a career for me in cognitive.

[307] science.

[308] I guess I'm a computer scientist now.

[309] But it's not what you were drawn to.

[310] I mean, I liked it.

[311] I thought it was interesting.

[312] Some of the classes more than others.

[313] I liked the theory and math side of it better than I liked spending 12 hours in the computer lab banging out code.

[314] Isn't it so weird that we expect kids at 18 years of age to be able to pick their future, to be able to pick a direction for their future?

[315] Yeah.

[316] It's just so bizarre.

[317] I just, I can't imagine.

[318] going through that again.

[319] You know, for me, I took a year off when I got out of high school and then I went to UMass Boston for three years, but I completely half -assed it.

[320] Like, I just was doing it because I didn't want to be a loser.

[321] So I was going to school with no idea whatsoever how I was ever going to fit into any traditional work environment.

[322] And all the while, I had a sort of a career because I was teaching martial arts and I was teaching it at a high level teaching it in Boston University and I had my own school and everything like that but I was still going to school and I was like what the fuck am I doing but at least I had like some things that I was interested in but I had friends that were going to school and they're like well I'm going to be an electrical engineer I'm like is that what you want to do you know I don't know I'm okay it's good money you can make good money I'm like okay I probably get a job yeah but that life is a weird life man that's the life that the majority of people do yeah the majority of people do this life where they start doing something because it's a job that they can do.

[323] Fuck, man. That's a, that's terrifying to me. Yeah, it's a sad, scary thought.

[324] For a guy like you.

[325] So that's why when I hear about a guy like you, I go, yes.

[326] Like, I love when a guy.

[327] Someone escaped.

[328] Yes.

[329] I fucking love when I meet a, uh, another comedian.

[330] I love when I meet a guy who makes a living as a musician.

[331] I love when I meet a writer, you know, I love people that have figured out a way to stay out of that fucking trap.

[332] that weird trap of just doing something because you can do it and you know and people who are doing something because they can do it and they're listening to this don't think i'm not criticizing you i easily could have been you easily you know it's not no one's better than you i'm just i'm celebrating you ike that you did it you figured it out there's a lot of luck involved a lot of different ways there's a luck a lot of luck involved in being american there's a lot of luck involved in having good you know motor skills that you can walk and you don't have a disease and you know you don't have fucking cancer your eyes work you know there's a lot of luck involved in a lot of different things so no doubt about it and there's definitely a lot of luck in finding a path picking a path and then figuring out that this is something you can actually do and that's when the courage and then the determination come in once there's an opening to just run run through that door so when you were 18 and you started making money doing poker and then you realized that like school was kind of whack.

[333] Like, what did your parents think about that?

[334] Well, the way that played out was, like I said, second semester of my junior year, I failed most of my classes after like stray days for five semesters.

[335] Did your parents suspect drugs?

[336] No, I don't think that was...

[337] That's what I was suspect.

[338] I'll give you a little piss test.

[339] Come here, you little freak.

[340] Fuck you doing.

[341] All that college tuition.

[342] Come on.

[343] Pressing this cup.

[344] What did they think?

[345] You're bored?

[346] Yeah, bored.

[347] I think that they were a little skeptical of the computer science thing all along that I just seemed to sort of pick something out of a hat and go for it.

[348] And it was not a huge surprise to them that I was getting sick of it.

[349] and then by coincidence over the following summer some legal rumbling started in Washington that maybe it's time to crack down on online gambling and a bill called the unlawful internet gambling enforcement act got passed or was due to get past that fall and I started thinking shit online poker might be going away I got to get all the money while I can and I called up the school this was like late August I'm like about to go back to school and I called up the university and said uh I maybe want to take next year off what happens if I do is there any penalty can I come back the following year no issue and they said yeah it's fine you've got like one more week to let us know.

[350] I said, okay, I'll call you back in a bit.

[351] I called it my parents.

[352] I was like, I'm pretty sure I want to take the year off and just play poker full -time.

[353] Wow.

[354] And what did they say?

[355] And they said, why?

[356] And I explained the UIG -E -A thing and the getting sick of computer science thing.

[357] And my mom said, how much money do you think you can make if you take a year off and play poker full -time?

[358] It's like, my goal would be about a million dollars.

[359] Whoa.

[360] And she said, that sounds good.

[361] I think you should do that.

[362] Yeah, you got to go high.

[363] You can't get out.

[364] I hope to make about 30 grand, the first year.

[365] But, yeah, a million bucks is a good call.

[366] People like hearing that their kid made a million bucks.

[367] Yeah.

[368] Go for it, son.

[369] And you were only 18, right?

[370] No, I was about 21.

[371] 21.

[372] Yeah, I'd been doing it for three years already.

[373] I'd made a few hundred thousand bucks already by that point.

[374] It wasn't like out of thin air, guess.

[375] It was like, I'm going to be playing these stakes this many hours a week.

[376] I beat these games for this much.

[377] It was like a realistic target for me. Wow.

[378] Now, what is the difference between a successful online poker player and a non -successful, when it was legal?

[379] Because obviously now it's a big fucking mess, right?

[380] You could legally gamble if a resident of Nevada online.

[381] Isn't that the case?

[382] The legal situation in the U .S. and worldwide is pretty complicated.

[383] The really weird thing is that no laws actually changed.

[384] How the government felt like enforcing them changed.

[385] When the law was talking about, the UIGEA passed, I didn't know this at the time I was making a decision to take the year off, but the final language of the bill says nothing about what unlawful interpretation.

[386] internet gambling is.

[387] It assumes that that's something that somebody else already knows and provides for enforcement against the banking and credit card transactions that facilitate illegal online gambling.

[388] It's in no way clear what illegal online gambling in the U .S. is.

[389] What?

[390] That sounds so crazy.

[391] There's, there are no federal laws about online gambling other than this anti -illegal online gambling enforcement act.

[392] Online gambling is treated as illegal by the Department of Justice on the basis of a law from the 60s called the Wire Act that says you can't play sports bets over telegram.

[393] And they're like...

[394] Really?

[395] Fucking telegram?

[396] A fucking telegram?

[397] Oh, my God.

[398] How about smoke signals?

[399] Is that legal still?

[400] Jesus Christ.

[401] And they're like, that's basically like playing poker on the internet.

[402] Wow, that is so crazy.

[403] So they decided that that's playing poker on the internet.

[404] Yeah.

[405] Wow.

[406] Gambling on sports through a telegraph.

[407] That is, that's so loopy.

[408] Yeah.

[409] And was this like sponsored by the casinos or something like that?

[410] Is that how it got weasled through?

[411] The Wire Act or the UIGEA?

[412] No, the UIGEA, the whatever it is.

[413] Them cracking down on it.

[414] Had to be, right?

[415] Probably, it's hard to tell.

[416] the casino lobby is really fucking powerful in America.

[417] Oh, yeah.

[418] I imagine.

[419] A lot of goddamn money involved.

[420] A lot of money involved.

[421] Donate a lot of money to both political parties.

[422] Yeah.

[423] And.

[424] And then, of course, the unions are sure as well, right?

[425] The unions, I'm sure, as well.

[426] Yeah.

[427] So, for instance.

[428] There are, I don't actually know what union represents.

[429] casino workers but I'm I think it's one of the bigger like food service sort of ones and is a big deal yeah I would imagine that they would do it just to sort of strengthen their position as job holders because like the the UFC has a big issue with the culinary union yeah I think I think that's who has a lot of the casino jobs as well I'm not certain I'm sure well that's what they're trying to do the reason why the UFC has an issue with the culinary union is because Zufa the company that owned the UFC also owns station casinos.

[430] So there's this huge push to try to get them to turn their casinos into union casinos.

[431] So they're keeping the UFC out of New York that way, like paying off politicians.

[432] It's fascinating.

[433] Yeah.

[434] It's fascinating because it's so old school and so transparent, like the corruption.

[435] So, I mean, New York State, like the actual people themselves would benefit tremendously if they allowed mixed martial arts.

[436] Sure.

[437] They also have boxing already there, which is more dangerous.

[438] I mean, it's all proven, and they still, for whatever reason, have been able to bribe these politicians transparently.

[439] Yeah, all that shit is just a power struggle over the money, it seems like.

[440] Yeah, so they just try to keep online poker.

[441] For online gambling, it was the same thing.

[442] The casino lobby in the U .S. has gone through a few stages in what they think about online gambling.

[443] At first, they just ignored it, didn't give a shit.

[444] That's not a real thing.

[445] nobody's going to gamble on the internet, who cares?

[446] And then around about 2005, 2006, they started saying, oh, no, this is unethical.

[447] We can't let people gamble from their homes.

[448] They need to drive to their local casino and gamble, because that's where we make money.

[449] And that's where we serve liquor, so we could be sure that they're fucked up when they're gambling.

[450] And think of the children.

[451] If you're playing online, it could be anybody, which, of course, is, wrong in both directions.

[452] For one thing, people gamble underage and casinos all the time.

[453] For the other, the identity verification stuff for online gambling is probably stricter than for live gambling.

[454] Anyhow.

[455] That's pretty interesting, is it?

[456] I didn't know that.

[457] So, like, what's the online thing?

[458] Like, what do you use?

[459] You have to show a photo of your credit card?

[460] You need...

[461] Or your driver's license, rather?

[462] It varies from site to site and ramps up if there's more money.

[463] And how would they know it's you and not just someone who has the information?

[464] Like if you're a 16 year old kid, you grab your dad's information and just start entering it in.

[465] You need more than a credit card.

[466] What do you need?

[467] It depends on the site, but like copy of photo ID, utility bill, you might need to answer a phone call on a landline associated with the address you claim.

[468] Yes, this is Mr. Hexton.

[469] My son, Ike.

[470] Why Ike is not the one who's making this gamble It's me My name's George I'm 50 You're basing my voice on And yeah obviously you can get around anything Yeah making an online I mean making a phone call That seems like so fucking old school Yeah That's such a weird way to verify Isn't it?

[471] I mean it's One layer of a whole bunch of different shit That they do to if it's on a landline it demonstrates that you are physically in the place you're claiming to be right okay that makes sense i guess but just it seems like anybody could just be on the phone unless you're face timing yeah i mean it that's why it's only one aspect of it then you just have to hire a makeup artist fucking do you up like your dad um that but that internet gambling thing though that did it was a big crackdown because i remember it um i remember it one point in time used to be able to gamble on sports online oh yeah guys used to be able to use to play poker for money online it was really common and there was even some websites that were uh there was a you i'm sure uh they're still around bodog they still around bo dog dog in the u .s has become bovada and still exists what is bovada bovada is the entity that they spun off of the main bow dog corporate entities because operating online gambling in the US is so risky that they have basically set up their corporate fall guy of Bo Vada, which is what gets fucked when inevitably continuing to take bets from the US eventually goes poorly.

[472] Oh, I see.

[473] So they're just kind of like setting up a straw house to blow down when the shit gets, but But they're, meanwhile, taking money out of the straw house and putting it in this big stone mansion somewhere that's under a different name.

[474] And yeah, Bodog, I shouldn't say any of this too confidently.

[475] I haven't been paying close attention to it.

[476] Welcome to what we do on the podcast every day.

[477] I think Bodog is continuing to operate around the world as Bodog and is Bovada only for its U .S. facing operations.

[478] Oh, okay.

[479] That makes sense.

[480] That Calvin Iyer guy, he can't even come into the America, into North America.

[481] Yeah, there are a bunch of people in the online gambling industry, who that's true of.

[482] They just live in Costa Rica now or something?

[483] Yeah.

[484] It's so crazy.

[485] It's so weird that that's what gets you locked up.

[486] And what is it?

[487] Are they saying they're not paying taxes?

[488] Like, what is the, I mean, why would they not want revenue?

[489] See, it doesn't make any sense to me. If people are willing to gamble and then they'll pay taxes on those gambling debts or, gambling profits or whatever it was or even losses um it seems like you know if the company wins money or if the person wins money taxes are going to be paid like it seems like that should be pretty easy to well so to go back to what i was saying about the stages that the casino lobby has gone through in their attitude online gambling around 2005 2006 they decided okay this is bad we need to shut it down it's competing money they thought they were they were they weren't.

[490] They weren't.

[491] I mean, this is my opinion here.

[492] I think that casinos saw online gambling as competition when it wasn't, that online gambling and casino gambling are not the same product.

[493] I don't, if I'm the type of person who either likes to go play blackjack at my local casino or likes to play slots on the internet I don't play less blackjack at my casino because I could play slots on the internet they're not the same experience you don't get the same things out of them if anything the availability of online gambling was feeding casino's new customers because people would play a little online and say this seems fun I kind of understand this now maybe I'll give gambling at the casino a try.

[494] Yeah, that's how I would look at it.

[495] Especially with respect to poker, as opposed to other sorts of gambling.

[496] Going into a casino to play poker, having never done it before, is a little bit intimidating.

[497] You don't really know how it works, and you're surrounded by people who do.

[498] And the ability to get a little experience playing online in a lower pressure environment, I think, introduces people to the game who then go on to play in live.

[499] casinos as well.

[500] No, when you go to a lot of casino, how many people are like me that don't know how to play poker at all, but are still trying to play poker?

[501] Like, do people get liquored up and just wander into the poker room and go, let's fucking give this a shot?

[502] Every once in a while and more at lower stakes than at higher stakes, obviously.

[503] Obviously.

[504] At high stakes, it's pretty rare to see somebody who has never really played poker before.

[505] But it happens?

[506] It happens.

[507] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[508] What does that like when you see some fucking fish?

[509] Some big fish that comes in, some, what do you call them whales?

[510] Is that what you guys call them?

[511] Fish, whales.

[512] Yeah, that's the common pool.

[513] Yeah, same terminology in poker.

[514] So they come in and a lot of money, don't know what the fuck they're doing, and everybody slowly starts circling them.

[515] Yep.

[516] There's a long wait list to play at the table that guy's at.

[517] If there's not a seat available, he walks in, he says, I want to play, everybody looks up.

[518] That guy looks rich, and we don't know.

[519] him.

[520] This game can become ten -handed now.

[521] Pull up a chair.

[522] So when you don't know a guy, so the world of poker, essentially you know all the elite players.

[523] Yeah.

[524] There's no one who could sneak up on you.

[525] I mean, there are probably a few people.

[526] There are probably like a handful of guys who mostly play online, turn up at a casino, and I wouldn't recognize them, but they're among the best players in the world.

[527] Wow.

[528] But for the most part, yeah, I recognize most of the top players.

[529] My friend Ari Shafir, who's a stand -up comedian, great guy, funny, hilarious motherfucker, but very smart.

[530] And when he was struggling as a stand -up comedian, he was playing poker tournaments.

[531] And he was making more money playing in casinos, playing poker, than he was doing stand -up.

[532] Yeah, I've heard Ari talk about that before.

[533] Yeah, I mean, he's making a living doing poker.

[534] And I always found that incredibly fascinating that he was doing that.

[535] who's just going from place to place and playing poker.

[536] And he said he could kind of tell.

[537] You could kind of tell when people knew what the fuck they were doing and when people were just assholes.

[538] Instantly, I mean.

[539] But does anybody ever hustle?

[540] Like the way they do in pool, they pretend to suck, and then they rope you in and...

[541] Yeah, some.

[542] It's more common, I'd say, at the midstakes than at the highest stakes, just because the world's too small to get away with it much at the highest stakes.

[543] Yeah, the highest stakes.

[544] How many guys are there in the world that are just elite?

[545] dozens to hundreds depending on how you're counting it i guess hmm so hundreds maybe maybe but out of those hundreds you're aware of all them you think pretty much and if you're not the overwhelming majority if i'm not it's because they're playing in games that don't have a lot of intersect with the games i'm playing in what about places like macao or places like i mean that's obviously a huge gambling macao is really interesting um i've played a couple of tournaments in macao i've never played in a cash game in Macau um though I have played in cash games with Macau guys a few times the UFC did some shows in Macau yeah I know and um there's been some boxing out there and I think they're doing another UFC out there yeah but they said that like it's it's just like Vegas times 100 they said it's madness like the amount of gambling and the craziness and the majesty of it all yeah it's real crazy where is that exactly it's it like It's right next to Hong Kong.

[546] It's like a one -hour ferry ride from Hong Kong.

[547] And how long has it been around?

[548] Macau.

[549] I want to say maybe 15 years, maybe less.

[550] That's so crazy.

[551] I think it's gotten huge in less than the last 10.

[552] How does something like that happen?

[553] How does something way bigger than Vegas just sprout out of China?

[554] China says you can gamble here, and the millions of Chinese millionaires say that sounds like a good idea.

[555] Let's go gamble here.

[556] And then you just a building.

[557] And there it is.

[558] What is it like?

[559] Like the, as far as like the buildings and far as like the atmosphere?

[560] It looks like bizarre of Vegas.

[561] It's creepy.

[562] I lived in Vegas for three years.

[563] So I go there and, oh, that's the win.

[564] And it looks exactly like the win.

[565] Only it's on exactly the opposite side of the world and everyone's Chinese.

[566] Whoa.

[567] So they call it the win?

[568] Yeah.

[569] Now there's the win, the Venetian...

[570] But are they rip -offs, or is it...

[571] No, no, it's owned by the same people.

[572] Oh, okay.

[573] Because you know how China does, they do wacky shit like that.

[574] They'll build, like, a fake Paris.

[575] Like, it's really strange how their laws are over there as far as what they can get away with.

[576] Isn't there, like, a fake Eiffel Tower in Shanghai or something like that?

[577] Not only is they're fake Eiffel Tower.

[578] It's like fake entire towns, like European villages, towns like down to the brick.

[579] They look exactly like them.

[580] There was this story that was on one of the major ones.

[581] websites.

[582] I forget what it was, where they detailed, I think it was Vice, actually.

[583] They detailed all these different towns that have been constructed in China.

[584] Oh, yeah.

[585] That were exact replicas of famous, like, you know, Swiss Alps towns and stuff like that.

[586] So, really weird.

[587] China's fucking weird.

[588] Oh, yeah.

[589] Ari just got back from China, too, and he's talking about how crazy it was there.

[590] He told us about gutter oil.

[591] Did you hear about, you know, what gutter oil is?

[592] I think I heard about it on the podcast.

[593] And I was like, that can't be real.

[594] I've eaten a lot of delicious food in Hong Kong.

[595] I hope it wasn't...

[596] A lot of delicious poop.

[597] It might not be as bad in Hong Kong as mainland.

[598] Maybe.

[599] I don't know.

[600] But, so Macau has all the major players, like the win and then the Venetian and all that jazz.

[601] And a bunch of...

[602] There's like a hard rock.

[603] The tournament I played there was at the hard rock, Macau.

[604] And does everyone speak English there?

[605] No. What about the hookers?

[606] Speak English?

[607] I didn't talk to any.

[608] I bet there's certainly a market for it.

[609] Oh, yeah, you think?

[610] I would guess that market forces force some hookers to speak English in Macau.

[611] Yeah.

[612] Yeah, my friend who went there said you couldn't get away from them.

[613] They were just swarming you.

[614] They're like flies.

[615] He said it was like mosquitoes in a hot summer day in the Northeast.

[616] It says, it's crazy.

[617] Like how many hookers were?

[618] But it makes sense.

[619] I mean, a lot of people gambling, a lot of money, a lot of celebration, A lot of victims, a lot of drunks.

[620] Yep.

[621] I just can't believe that something like that can just explode out of it.

[622] Like, I never even heard of Macau until maybe two or three years ago.

[623] Like, I remember peripherally reading about it online, something like that.

[624] And then I heard about boxing matches being held there.

[625] Yeah, I basically didn't know anything about it until poker took off there maybe four or five years ago.

[626] So you're 18 years old.

[627] You start playing poker.

[628] You're 21 years old.

[629] You tell your parents, you know what?

[630] Fuck it.

[631] I'm going to give it a go.

[632] I'm going to try to make a million dollars in the first year.

[633] How much did you actually want it making that first year?

[634] 1 .6.

[635] Capao!

[636] Jesus.

[637] God damn, son.

[638] A couple months after I said that, I played in one of my first ever big live tournaments and finished second for like $850 ,000, so I got a bit of a head start.

[639] Wow.

[640] Jesus Christ.

[641] So everyone was happy at the, at the Haxton household.

[642] Yes.

[643] Yeah, they were okay with my plan.

[644] So then from there, do you just go guns blazing and just...

[645] I went back and I finished school.

[646] I only had a year left, so I...

[647] You went, you won a million six and went back and...

[648] I would have told school to suck my dick.

[649] I would have called them up.

[650] Fuck you and fuck computers.

[651] That was 80 % what I did.

[652] I went back and I decided to get a degree in philosophy.

[653] I figured out that there was a particular track within the philosophy department called philosophy of science and logic that I could count some of the classes I'd already done toward, and it was like five bullshit classes away from a degree in philosophy.

[654] I was like, all right, I can do that.

[655] I'll get my college degree before I have to be the creepy old guy who's back on campus in 10 years when poker's done.

[656] I'll be happy I have a degree.

[657] Why did you think you were going to have to, you were planning on family?

[658] You thought it was, like, possible that it could all go away?

[659] I thought it was possible it could all go away.

[660] I thought it was possible it could get too hard.

[661] I thought that maybe I'm really good relative to my competition now, but who knows about in 10 years?

[662] Hmm.

[663] You know, it's like competing in a sport.

[664] At some point, you're older than the other people.

[665] You're not as sharp as them.

[666] They're hungrier than you are, and you can't keep up.

[667] Do you, we talked about in the ads, I was talking about AlphaBrain, but there's a bunch of cognitive enhancing things that people take.

[668] I know some folks take Adderall and some folks take New Vigil or Pro Vigil, like these different cognitive enhancing smart drugs.

[669] Do you guys fuck with those things?

[670] Poker players in general, yeah, absolutely.

[671] Like what is like the most common stuff?

[672] I mean, caffeine has to be number one.

[673] And there are waitresses walking around serving coffee at poker tournaments.

[674] Really?

[675] Yeah.

[676] And water and booze if you want it.

[677] How many guys get liquored up while they're playing?

[678] It seems like a bad move, right?

[679] In terms of like high -level competition, the biggest tournaments, essentially nobody.

[680] Cash games in a casino on any given night, it's reasonably common.

[681] Right.

[682] So what do most guys take besides?

[683] There are plenty of people who take Adderall are rid of.

[684] Ritalin.

[685] Ritalin.

[686] That's a speed, too, right?

[687] Yeah, yeah.

[688] It's another one of the anti -A -D -D sort of things.

[689] Right.

[690] Provigil is not unheard of.

[691] I fucked with that a little bit in college for studying and found that I just didn't really like it very much.

[692] I want to send you some Alphabrain.

[693] Say, if you like it.

[694] A bunch of my friends use Alphabrain.

[695] Yeah, that's a good one.

[696] Another good one is there's a stuff called Neuro1.

[697] Have you ever heard of Neuro1?

[698] um i've heard you talk about it before it's bill romanowski stuff right it's really good as well there's a bunch of companies that are selling these cognitive enhancing formulas now and especially now that alpha brain has become really popular it's become super popular to sell these blends because there's all these like different things like paracetum and coline there's all these different things that have been shown to have positive effects of cognitive function a friend of mine in a tournament a couple months ago gave me something called smart caffeine which is just caffeine and Elthianine and I thought that was awesome.

[699] I've been taking some Elthianine recently.

[700] Do you prasstam?

[701] You ever mess with that stuff?

[702] I haven't.

[703] I've heard good things.

[704] A few of my friends use it.

[705] I like it.

[706] One of my closest friends in poker is J .C. Alvarado, who I think you know of it.

[707] Yeah, he's on my website.

[708] Yeah.

[709] I met him.

[710] Yeah, I met him a bunch of times.

[711] Cool guy.

[712] Yeah, he's an awesome guy.

[713] Great things to say about you.

[714] He said that you were probably the best heads -up player, one -on -one player in the world.

[715] Only thing about that, fella.

[716] there are I'm definitely in the running I mean so what is it different between playing heads up and playing like you know a large tournament like 30 40 people well besides the obvious like what's the the strategic difference like how you approach it it's simpler um which doesn't necessarily mean it's easier it means it's it's easier to get really in depth in how you're analyzing it and the same situations come up over and over again because it's only two players and if there are nine players at the table that's nine different people who can do something different every hand and similar situations don't come up nearly as often whereas when I'm playing heads up two hours into playing a guy I can be in the spot where I'm on the button he's in the big blind I raise he calls flop comes down, he checks, I check, turn comes down, he bets, I call, River comes down, he checks, it's on me. This exact situation, not the boards that have run out, but the betting action, that situation has come up already 20 times in the match that we're playing, and I can have a pretty clear idea of in this exact spot, this guy traps a little bit more than my average opponent, he's going to take this line with a strong hand more than some other people will so I can't bluff him as effectively or I can't make a value bet with quite as weak a hand as I would against some other players and heads up poker is more amenable to that sort of detailed analysis of how your opponent is playing by the way I understood maybe 10 things out of 20 that you said I don't even think 10 Button blind Flop All that river All that's poker talk Yeah Poker jargon So how much of it Like this expression This is a big one The The big one is a poker face Having a poker face Like how much of that is real Like how much of is Do you read a guy Or do you worry In live poker?

[717] Yeah absolutely Totally Yeah, it's a huge factor.

[718] So if we're looking at each other right now and we're playing, what are you looking for?

[719] Do you feel it?

[720] Do you sense it?

[721] Absolutely, you do sense it.

[722] And there's just a gut thing that happens for sure.

[723] You just look at somebody and he just doesn't look that comfortable or he does look comfortable.

[724] And often there's just a general sort of feel you get from somebody that is difficult to put words to, but that the top players aren't confident when they get those gut feelings and go with them.

[725] But there are specific things you can look for too.

[726] Like, you can...

[727] You want to first get a sort of baseline reading on people's posture.

[728] Like, look at them sitting at the table when they're not playing a hand.

[729] And then having done that, you can observe shifts from that.

[730] Like, somebody will...

[731] I'm bumping into the mic here, but somebody will get up closer to the table when they're interested and invested in the situation.

[732] Or you can even see somebody make like a microgesture of recoiling in frustration when a bad card hits the board or you make a bet that they don't like.

[733] And you can see little movements like that.

[734] You can read somebody's pulse in their neck.

[735] What?

[736] Yeah.

[737] So you see some...

[738] So you're staring at someone's neck Because in that sense It'd be good to be a fatso, right?

[739] A bunch of people wear scarves while they play So that you can't What?

[740] That's crazy!

[741] All the top German guys now are wearing scarves While they play Because...

[742] Fucking Germans!

[743] No joke!

[744] That's so crazy.

[745] So you look at a guy's pulse In his neck And what are you looking for?

[746] The amounts of beats?

[747] See if you can see how fast it's going?

[748] Going faster or like the blood pressure raising when they're really tense.

[749] Wow, that's crazy.

[750] I never would have thought that.

[751] Or how deep someone is breathing.

[752] You can watch the rise and fall of their chest.

[753] Wow.

[754] One thing people do is people tend to be a lot more still and tight when they're nervous and move around a little more or more relaxed when they're comfortable.

[755] And so when somebody is trying to just keep it together and look.

[756] Put their poker face on and look the same way they always look, but they're actually really comfortable because they've got a great hand, and they're about to win.

[757] Wow.

[758] You can sometimes see their leg will start pumping.

[759] They'll start tapping their foot real fast.

[760] They'll be keeping everything above the table still, but their leg will start going real fast.

[761] Wow.

[762] Now, what about someone faking all that stuff?

[763] That happens all the time.

[764] Does it?

[765] Oh, yeah.

[766] Like in what way?

[767] any of those things like now that I've just said I look at people's legs while they're playing I'm going to be playing against somebody in a couple weeks and he's going to be bluffing me on the river he's going to start tapping his foot because I've just said that that's something I'm looking for for evidence that they're strong so when you see someone like I'm sorry a thing I used to do sometimes I feel like I can't get away with it as much now because people know who I am and expect me to be pulling some bullshit and in control of my physical stuff, but something I would do is I would sit like this while playing in general.

[768] With a hand on your face.

[769] And when I wanted to fake being nervous, I'd lean into it.

[770] And you can like see my cheek go a little white where my knuckles are making contact with my face.

[771] And that would make you look more nervous?

[772] Yeah.

[773] Do you practice this stuff in front of a mirror?

[774] Yeah.

[775] I mean, why not?

[776] If you can make one point $6 million your first year, I'd practice a lot of goofy shit, too.

[777] Fake tells can be real subtle.

[778] What about guys that play with sunglasses on?

[779] Is that super common?

[780] It's very common.

[781] Tells from your eyes are...

[782] It's a factor, but it's not one of the biggest ones.

[783] Because you're used to people looking you in the eyes.

[784] You're practiced at lying with your eyes.

[785] You know people are looking at your eyes.

[786] Isn't that an eagle song?

[787] You can't hide your lion eyes?

[788] Sounds like an eagle song.

[789] I believe it is.

[790] So the glass is not a huge factor.

[791] Not a huge factor.

[792] What's the biggest one?

[793] The lips?

[794] The neck.

[795] Hands, general posture, legs and feet even.

[796] People are not on top of that one.

[797] How many times you've been faked out by fake tells it's hard to tell you don't necessarily know it was a fake afterwards because sometimes it's not fake and you're just wrong you're wrong in your hand do you mean you're no you're the tell is genuine but you interpreted incorrectly somebody's not actively faking you out but like none of this is an exact science like I see somebody's pulse go up I know for sure their pulses up and that they're feeling something intense right now it could be that they have a flush, it could be that they're really excited about their great hand, or it could be that they're really stressed about the big bluff they're making.

[798] Ah, right, right, right.

[799] So you know something's going on.

[800] So, yeah, you get these physical signs, but there's not a direct path from that to knowing exactly what they have.

[801] Do you believe in psychic energy?

[802] Do you believe that you can read something from a person other than just tells?

[803] That's a tough one to answer.

[804] When you use the phrase psychic energy, inclined to say no because that sounds kind of magical and crazy but i definitely believe that there is very subtle nonverbal communication that happens between people that is sometimes involuntary that you just you know things about what's going through the mind of somebody you're sitting next to and it's hard to tell exactly how and why you know.

[805] I mean, I think that's...

[806] Like, give me an example.

[807] Like, in what sense?

[808] Um, I mean, whether at the poker table or in any other context, when you're, you are reading people's moods and thoughts all the time.

[809] You can tell when somebody is feeling relaxed and happy.

[810] You can tell when they're stressed out.

[811] You can tell when they're stressed out.

[812] focused in thinking hard or when they're spacing out right that all makes sense like you just interpret regular human movement communication behavior patterns and such but I would say that one of the best sort of pieces of evidence that being a psychic doesn't exist is that there's no psychics that just become poker players and start fucking cleaning up yeah I mean clearly there's nobody who can just sit across the table from you and read your mind.

[813] Yeah, because I would think that if there were really psychics, that would be the place where it would show up as poker, right?

[814] Sure, or, I mean, any of a number of other places where you could make a killing or otherwise be very successful and powerful based on that ability.

[815] I mean...

[816] Yeah, there'd be a lot of them.

[817] Stock market would be a good one, playing the lottery, obviously.

[818] well that's getting into predicting the future versus reading minds which i mean i don't think anybody's doing either of those things but reading minds seems marginally more plausible than predicting the future yeah right and that's a different kind of but reading the future is kind of interpreted as psychic right isn't it yeah i mean in some way they're they're similarly crazy powers that some people claim to have does like socially does like socially does Does that like, it seems to me that like the ability to read tells and the ability to be so tuned into it because it's part of the game of poker, does that carry over to social communication?

[819] Like, do you notice things more in the way people, like, we all know when someone's a bullshitter, right?

[820] We all know when someone bullshits you and tells you sorry that's like a little fucking screwy.

[821] I mean, we kind of have this weird sense just based on the data that we've accumulated over a lifetime's worth of communicating with people that something's off here.

[822] And also, if you've communicated with a bunch of bullshitters, you kind of recognize it.

[823] So we feel like that, like, being a good poker player, like, makes you a better social reader as well?

[824] I think so.

[825] I think probably not by a giant margin, but, yeah, I think I'm probably a bit above average at that.

[826] I think I have a more studied and self -awarely.

[827] approach to it than a lot of other people do.

[828] I think I may have started from a baseline of being a bit below average at that kind of thing, where somebody might say that story felt kind of bullshit.

[829] I'm more likely to say, well, he said, I think, and equivocated on a couple of things where that's not a way you would talk about it if you weren't full of shit.

[830] his eyes were darting around a lot so you look at it you would look at an analytical sense instead of just basing just on your instincts you would use both your instincts and analytical yeah yeah there's something there's something I'm one of the main things that I'm fascinated with with poker is the ability to read minds or read tells rather the ability to sort of get this sense of where a person's going with things get the sense I think that's fascinating because i know that that exists in real life i know it does i know it exists like that thing exists with with human beings i just don't know exactly what it is i've always wondered i always wondered what exactly is going on when people are looking at each other and you know something's off yeah you know just like this a sense like there's a perfect story um i've told this before but my friend brian callan he used to he's a great guy but he used to date like some of the craziest fucking people of all time he's had a bunch crazy people in his life too and I would hang out with him and he would have this guy over and I'm like what do you do this guy's a fucking bullshit artist like what he couldn't see it for whatever reason just couldn't see it yeah and he introduced me to this girl within five seconds like he goes hey this is blah blah blah this is my friend Joe I go how you doing and she goes oh hi I go come here Brian I pull them aside I go she's fucking crazy I go get out right now whatever you're doing he goes no she's not crazy she's just nervous to be around you i go dude trust me i i have a spitey sense for like real crazy i go that girl's fucking crazy turns out of course he didn't listen moves her in blah blah blah turns out she's on meth completely out of her fucking mind uh is a prostitute um has has uh these johns in her life and and you know fucking pimps in her life and then he you know he gets rid of her and then years later he's uh on a bar at a bar on sunset and about to walk in and she walks by and she's streetwalking.

[831] Jeez.

[832] Yeah.

[833] I spotted it like that.

[834] Yeah.

[835] He didn't spot it at all.

[836] Fascinating.

[837] He would be a suck -ass poker player.

[838] I don't think I'd be a good poker player.

[839] I don't have the patience.

[840] It's just not something I'm interested in.

[841] But if I was interested in, I wonder if I'd be able to pick up tells.

[842] I find that so fascinating.

[843] I feel like with all the experience in martial arts.

[844] you would have a leg up on learning that stuff.

[845] I mean, picking up tells, has some in common with, you know, looking at somebody's stance and picking up that they're about to throw a kick.

[846] Hmm, that's interesting because looking at someone's stance and whether or not they're going to throw a kick is based on data.

[847] You know, like sometimes I'll say, like during a broadcast, like he's about to throw a left high kick.

[848] Yeah.

[849] And someone will go, how will you know?

[850] And because there's a very small but perceptible rise in his heel.

[851] Like his heel came up off the back foot, which means usually that a guy's trying to get a little bit of a head start throwing a kick with his back leg.

[852] And you just, you see it because so many guys have thrown kicks at you.

[853] Or because you've tried to hide it on people and you've thrown kicks of people.

[854] You know, there's a thing that you see.

[855] But it's, there's, there was a book on this.

[856] and it's um not about martial arts but it's about just acquiring massive amounts of data uh about very specific things and then being able to see these things coming i forget the term that they used yeah but it was just about that about how for a person who doesn't have this data in their mind it seems like like how's this guy seeing this but for someone who has all that data it's like oh there it is you know just like this little blip little yeah it's exactly the same thing with picking up tells in poker because just thousands of times I've sat across the table from a guy.

[857] I've looked at him.

[858] I've thought about whether or not I think this guy has a good hand and then I've put out my call and he shows me his hand.

[859] And I've just been through that routine thousands of times.

[860] And so now I find myself in that spot and the guy's bet and I'm looking at him and thinking about whether or not to call.

[861] And I have a big sample of what people look like right before I call them, and then whether or not they show me the winning hint.

[862] So a guy like Doyle Brunson, who's been around for a hundred years, he would be a wizard at that shit, right?

[863] I would guess so, yeah.

[864] That's really interesting, man. That's really interesting.

[865] That guy should teach, like, tells, right?

[866] Like, if you're that old, been around for that.

[867] How long has that guy been playing?

[868] A real long time.

[869] 50, 60 years or something crazy like that?

[870] 50 years.

[871] More like 60, yeah.

[872] 60 years.

[873] Yeah, all that.

[874] Dude's in his 80s, I'm pretty sure.

[875] That's amazing, man. That all those years of accumulating that data.

[876] And a guy like that has really been around for the transformation of poker, too.

[877] It was a real different thing back in the 60s.

[878] Yeah, it was like you'd go over people's houses, right?

[879] Yeah.

[880] That was all it was.

[881] Did they have it in casinos back then?

[882] I want to say the 60s was when poker in casinos began picking up.

[883] The 60s?

[884] Yeah.

[885] What led to this poker revolution that we find now?

[886] I mean, fucking everybody plays poker now.

[887] Yeah, there were a few stages of it.

[888] The earlier parts, like what happened in the 60s and 70s, I know less about, but they started running the World Series of poker in Vegas in the 60s, and have every year for, I guess World Series started in 69.

[889] I think.

[890] So they've run it every year for 40 -some years now.

[891] Well, the big one on television was when they started showing those cameras for television of the cards.

[892] Being able to see people's hands.

[893] That was huge.

[894] That was huge in making it spectators.

[895] Making it exciting.

[896] Even for a guy like me who doesn't play.

[897] If I'm sitting at a bar and I look up and there's a poker thing on, you see each guy's hand.

[898] That's, to me, it's very exciting.

[899] Yeah, that was a huge leap forward.

[900] They had tried televising poker tournaments before that, but it's a special thing.

[901] Especially to a casual viewer, a lot less interesting.

[902] But you see a less of it, at least for the cat, the, you know, the non -involved observer like myself.

[903] You see less of it on television now.

[904] In the U .S. In the U .S. In other countries.

[905] It's not, it hasn't fallen off nearly the same way in other places.

[906] And the reason behind that is that in order to make a profitable TV show, you have to sell advertising space.

[907] If you're making a poker TV show, who do you want to sell advertising space to?

[908] Poker.

[909] online poker sites online poker sites can't advertise in the US anymore motherfuckers so in Canada or England or France poker on TV is still huge so in Canada it's legal to bet online it is ambiguous ambiguous because in most of the world it's ambiguous can I would seem that like if you were a poker player and you live in America you just moved to Vancouver you play online in Vancouver, traveled on to America, give up U .S. citizenship, and getting citizenship somewhere else is a lot tougher than you might guess.

[910] Yeah, I would imagine.

[911] In 2011, when it became clear I was going to have to leave the U .S. to keep playing poker online, I was very startled that I can't just go wherever I want and set up shop and stay there indefinitely.

[912] So you live in Malta now?

[913] Is that your move?

[914] Mostly.

[915] I can only spend about half the year there for visa reasons so I spend about half the year in Malta and do a lot of traveling around to other places as well You fucking pimp Look at you Kid goes from Hating school Trying to figure out Gets the love of his parents Fucking bolts Makes 1 .6 a year The first year And then from there on When you got your degree And then you decided to just dedicate yourself To be in a professional poker player Like how many years was it Until you kind of had to make this move out of the United States?

[916] Three.

[917] Three.

[918] I graduated in 2008, moved to Vegas, and lived in Vegas from 2008 to 2011, and then moved to Malta.

[919] What was living in Vegas like?

[920] It was pretty great.

[921] I lived in Panorama Towers.

[922] You spent a lot of time in Vegas.

[923] You might know it.

[924] It's the apartment complex next door to Vanderlays gym.

[925] Oh, okay.

[926] Yeah, I know where that is.

[927] Yeah.

[928] Nice spot.

[929] Yeah.

[930] And it was just full of poker players.

[931] Oh, really?

[932] Some friends of mine from college who moved out there with me at the same time.

[933] I had two friends from college who, one still is a professional poker player.

[934] One was for a couple years and they went to law school.

[935] They moved out to Vegas with me. My girlfriend then, who's now my wife, came out with me. And then I met a bunch of poker players who were already living out there.

[936] And Panorama Towers in 2008, 2009 was just insanity.

[937] the whole building was just poker players and strippers.

[938] Oh, empty apartments.

[939] Wow.

[940] What a party that must have been.

[941] Poker players and strippers.

[942] How'd that work out?

[943] It must have been a lot of money being exchanged in those towers.

[944] Allegedly.

[945] Allegedly.

[946] I don't know any details of that sort of thing.

[947] Good for you.

[948] Stay on the straight and narrow, son.

[949] Avoid the divorce that fucking traps hedge fund managers, sends them to their doom.

[950] So you live in Vegas, you're doing the poker thing in Vegas.

[951] In Vegas, but mainly online.

[952] Mainly online still.

[953] Why is that?

[954] Is it more profitable, easier?

[955] More profitable for me at that time, given my personal skill set and inclinations.

[956] There's money to be made doing both.

[957] The advantages with online poker are, you know, You can get a lot more hands an hour in.

[958] You don't have any of the cost or wasted time associated with going somewhere to play.

[959] There's not the drive to get there and the drive back and the time spent waiting for a seat in a game.

[960] Playing live poker involves live cash games involves a lot of waiting around for your turn to get to play in the game.

[961] Yeah, I would imagine.

[962] And then once you get in the game, you play 30 hands an hour.

[963] online, I'm playing three or four hundred and an hour, and that's not that's not even particularly high volume.

[964] Are you playing more than one game at a time online?

[965] Oh, I see.

[966] So you run multiple computers?

[967] No, you can it's just multiple windows on one computer.

[968] Okay, so there's different sites.

[969] No, you can play multiple tables on one site.

[970] Really?

[971] Yeah, yeah.

[972] You're not doing anything sneaky or bad by playing multiple tables.

[973] No, when you have a thing on sites, do you have a time limit?

[974] Yeah.

[975] Yeah, pretty short.

[976] Something like 15 seconds, and then after 15 seconds, it goes into your time bank, which is like another minute worth of time, but that is not constantly replenished.

[977] So, like, you use 30 seconds of your time bank.

[978] Now you've only got 30 seconds left for the next hand if you were to go into your time bank again.

[979] So, yeah, you have to play quite quickly.

[980] That seems like, yeah, like, why would anybody go anywhere if you could play it online like that?

[981] And so the games are tougher online because you can get so many more hands in the best players are winning so much that the competition to be the best player in the game online is stiffer.

[982] Whereas live is more fun for many recreational players, people who are losing at poker.

[983] not all of them many prefer to play in a live game where they can see and hang out with the people do you have to worry about when you play it online do you have to worry about bots or is that nothing anymore like that was something that people really worried about for a while it's a concern for sure the biggest and best sites I think are doing a pretty good job at enforcing against it you can do various things to detect when it's a bot rather than a human playing and shut it down.

[984] How do you do that?

[985] What do they do?

[986] They run programs or something like that to try to...

[987] The site has various data to work with based on what you're giving them.

[988] They're not like scanning your computer to see what other programs you're running or anything like that.

[989] They're not invading your privacy in that way.

[990] But what they can do is they can keep track of your mouse movement around the screen and the speed and timing that you're clicking on things, and they can detect the difference between a human moving a mouse around the screen like a human and a computer program that just jumps from button to button and acts instantly.

[991] So at this point, if you're running a bot that plays for you, part of a person, part of your challenge is that you have to code up software to move the mouse around the screen in a convincingly human -like fashion and evade this detection.

[992] They track your playing hours.

[993] If you're just regularly playing for 48 hours straight, that's pretty suspicious.

[994] Right.

[995] Unless they get a nice fucking webcam video, you doing crank sitting in front of your computer.

[996] Yeah.

[997] I mean, occasionally it comes to that sort of thing.

[998] Like, a guy I know was playing 60 tables at once.

[999] And they're like, you're a bot.

[1000] A person can't do that.

[1001] And so he uploaded a video of him doing that.

[1002] And he's like, no, I fucking can.

[1003] This is what it looks like.

[1004] What does he have, like a bank of screens in front of him?

[1005] No, I think it was just all on one screen, all the tables stacked on top of each other.

[1006] That's insane.

[1007] Whichever table you have to act on pops to the top.

[1008] and you just click, and it goes to the side, and the next one you have to act on, pops to the top.

[1009] 60s fucking.

[1010] Oh, my God.

[1011] He was a competitive Starcraft player before he came to poker, so he was just, like, sick at speed -clicking.

[1012] Oh, yeah, and multitasking.

[1013] Those StarCraft players, it's amazing.

[1014] You watch that.

[1015] That's insane.

[1016] I don't know what they're doing, so it's even more amazing to me. Yeah, same.

[1017] Duncan.

[1018] Every now and then I watch those videos, and it's nuts.

[1019] Duncan's obsessed with that shit.

[1020] He was a silver, whatever the fuck that is.

[1021] on Starcraft for a while and then he lost his silver standing and he's very, very upset, it's very embarrassed.

[1022] But I would watch him get obsessed with that stuff and he would watch the videos and his eyes would light up and his pupils would dilate and those videos are insane.

[1023] And it's a huge spectator sport in Korea, right?

[1024] Yeah, it's huge.

[1025] There's like TV stations devoted to just that, I'm pretty sure.

[1026] Yeah, I need to talk to one of those The Golf channels, the Starcraft channel.

[1027] Starcraft dudes.

[1028] Apparently it's a very, very, very, very difficult game, too, that is in a lot of ways, very chess -like in that sense.

[1029] It's very strategic but also like almost athletic in the sort of speed -clicking demands.

[1030] Well, 3D games are very athletic in that sense.

[1031] The hand -eye coordination that are involved in playing games like Unreal or Quake or you know, Doom or any of those crazy fast - Twitch games.

[1032] There are quite a few competitive gamers who transitioned to poker and are no professional poker players.

[1033] But I'd imagine that people that just have this inclination towards, like, figuring things out in a game sense, they would have that towards a lot of things.

[1034] Absolutely.

[1035] Yeah, poker is full of people who were in some other game or sport before poker.

[1036] The pool thing is huge.

[1037] A lot of pool players go into poker because they can actually make money doing it as opposed to pool.

[1038] It's very difficult to do.

[1039] So when you live in Vegas for a little bit, hanging out with strippers.

[1040] And poker players And strippers And poker players And then So you decide How do you go with Malta It's a weird story actually How I ended up in Malta Originally it had a lot to do Where is Malta It's like right next to Sicily Oh wow It's like a couple hours on the ferry to Sicily Hmm okay That's where my grandparents are from Oh cool so yeah malta's real nearby i drink a lot of sicilian wine need a lot of sicilian pizza there i bet man the food they're supposed to be sensational like the seafood's supposed to be amazing all the local red king prawns in malta are some of the most delicious things i've ever eaten wow okay so how you what what makes you live there so the tax thing is that a gambling a residency thing um it's easy it looked like it was going to be when i started looking into it at the time.

[1041] Um, it was basically just, you need to pay some relatively small fees for the process.

[1042] You need to fill in a bunch of paperwork, mainly stuff like demonstrating that you have enough money to support yourself, that you haven't been convicted of any crimes in the country you're coming from basic stuff like that.

[1043] And they will give you a permit to stay there as long as you like.

[1044] So do you speak Spanish or Italian?

[1045] Like what do you speak there?

[1046] In Malta, they speak Malti and English Malti and what is Malti It is a Semitic language So like closest to Arabic Jesus Christ But it's Written in Like Roman characters Like The alphabet you're used to Oh okay Not like Roman numerals No not Roman numerals Like Vs instead of using The alphabet we use for English and French And Spanish and Italian Wow but it's a Semitic language But it's a Semitic language So it's just full of like Xs and Q's and G -Hs that you can't pronounce at all.

[1047] I needed to go to the post office to pick up a package that had been sent to me, and I don't have a car there, so I need to take a taxi.

[1048] So I get the address of the post office, I write it down.

[1049] It's in a town I thought was called Cormi.

[1050] It's spelled C -O -R -M -I.

[1051] I get in the taxi, I say, I need to go to the post office and Cormi.

[1052] The guy looks at me like I've just told him I need to go to the post office on the moon.

[1053] He's never heard of Cormi.

[1054] It's not a big island.

[1055] They're like 500 ,000 people there.

[1056] You can drive from one end to the other in an hour.

[1057] I say it again.

[1058] I show it to him on the piece of paper.

[1059] He says, oh, or me. Yes, we can go to or me. It starts with a silent cue.

[1060] A silent cue.

[1061] You would have guessed.

[1062] Silent cues?

[1063] Why use it?

[1064] How weird.

[1065] What a strange thing.

[1066] That whole part of the world is so bizarre because it's like sort of the echoes of the conqueror movements of thousands.

[1067] of years ago.

[1068] Oh, yeah, and you can really see it in Malta.

[1069] I mean, it's been conquered by so many people over the years.

[1070] Obviously, the language is Semitic because at one point it was under Moorish or Arabic control.

[1071] Which is why the scene from true romance with the Moors in Sicily.

[1072] Yeah.

[1073] With, you know, where it's saying that, yeah, the racist scene for all the black people.

[1074] That's the reason why so many Sicilians have dark skin and Curly hair.

[1075] Maltese people look Roughly like Lebanese people or something.

[1076] They're pretty dark -skinned.

[1077] They speak a language that sounds a lot like Arabic with an Italian accent, basically.

[1078] So did you do a lot of research before you decided on Malta?

[1079] Medium amount.

[1080] Did you know anybody living there already?

[1081] I knew a few people who had been there.

[1082] So you just fucking moved to some strange island?

[1083] Well, what happened was the Department of Justice cracked down on the poker sites happened in April 2011.

[1084] And a few weeks went by, we're thinking maybe this will all just blow over and everything will be back to the way it was in a month or two.

[1085] It became pretty clear that was not going to be the case by late May. And the World Series of poker is about to start in Vegas.

[1086] I'm going to be playing a poker tournament every day for six weeks.

[1087] But I'm beginning to plan ahead to what I'm going to do after that so I can get back to playing online and talking to my girlfriend about where we're going to move.

[1088] And the idea of Malta comes up, and we decide she's going to go there by herself and check it out while I'm playing the World Series.

[1089] And she's, like, not really that enthusiastic about this idea at the time.

[1090] I'm, she's like, we're going to go to this little shitty island in the middle of nowhere.

[1091] I don't know about this.

[1092] Yeah, that sounds weird.

[1093] But she went over there and ended up loving it.

[1094] It's like, Malta's great, let's go there.

[1095] Wow.

[1096] Yeah, came back, just.

[1097] Where are the other poker players go?

[1098] Can anybody follow you over there?

[1099] Two other guys came with me over there and didn't stay.

[1100] What a fascinating vagabond lifestyle you guys have?

[1101] Yeah, it's nuts.

[1102] All my friends who are living in Panorama Towers in Vegas are now scattered all over the world.

[1103] So no one stayed in Vegas?

[1104] One dude stayed in Vegas.

[1105] One dude out of how many?

[1106] One dude out of my, like, close group of 10 friends or so and a handful more out of the, like, 50 or 60 who are living in the building.

[1107] But isn't it legal now to gamble online on some sites if you live in Vegas?

[1108] Yes.

[1109] There is online poker in Nevada, but it's Nevada only.

[1110] So...

[1111] Playing against other people in Nevada?

[1112] So it was a limited group of people to play with?

[1113] Yeah, you can't play very high stakes.

[1114] There aren't a lot of games.

[1115] Playing full -time from Nevada is not a very appeal proposition.

[1116] The guy who decided to stay is playing mainly in casinos.

[1117] Wow.

[1118] Now, is there any movement to change this as far as the online laws?

[1119] Yes.

[1120] What year was this all implemented?

[1121] I want to say 2005 or something?

[1122] The UIGEA passed in 2006, but it's not really even clear how much that had to do with anything.

[1123] What happened right after the UIGEA passed in 2006 was that some poker sites voluntarily pulled out of the U .S. market and that doing transactions with poker sites became more complicated.

[1124] Because remember what I was saying about the UIGEA, it didn't change what was illegal.

[1125] It's not like online poker was legal before that and then it wasn't.

[1126] It's not like online poker was clearly illegal the whole time.

[1127] Nobody really knows.

[1128] It's up to prosecutors to decide that they want to prosecute a case against an online gambling site on the basis of the laws that are on the books, which are pretty vague.

[1129] And then courts to decide if it's fair to apply those laws to the case in question.

[1130] So has anybody from the U .S., that's a poker player, tried playing online poker from the United States and been prosecuted?

[1131] Players don't really get prosecuted.

[1132] So it's essentially the site owners?

[1133] The sites are the ones that are exposed to legal risk.

[1134] So like if you just decided to stay in Vegas and keep playing online, what would be the risk?

[1135] The sites wouldn't take my business.

[1136] They wouldn't take your business.

[1137] What if you went through a proxy?

[1138] Then I might trick them and I might get to play on the site, but I would be constantly at risk of being caught and if I'm caught I might lose all my money so yeah you have to do all sorts of identity masking bullshit to get away with playing on international poker sites from the US so what's being done to try to change that in some ways it's pretty similar to the marijuana movement in the US actually it's happening on a state by state basis there's probably not going to be a federal bill anytime soon.

[1139] There have been some attempts, but they haven't come very close to passing.

[1140] But so far, Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware have passed online poker bills, and you can play in those three places.

[1141] That's it.

[1142] That's it so far.

[1143] California is at the forefront and is a huge one.

[1144] If California becomes an online poker state, even if you can only play against other California residents, it's a big enough state with enough money that that will be a full -fledged poker economy.

[1145] Yeah, 20 million people here.

[1146] I mean, this is a goddamn country.

[1147] Yeah.

[1148] This is Canada.

[1149] Close.

[1150] Canada's 40.

[1151] Is it?

[1152] I think so.

[1153] I think I looked that up recently.

[1154] I think you did, too.

[1155] I think you're right I think we looked it up actually Well let's find out right now Population of Canada I want to say it's 37 population That sounds about right I think California is actually Higher than 22 34 34 .8 California or Canada?

[1156] Canada 34 .8 I want to say California is close I mean L .A. is 12 or 14 already 38 California is 38 So yeah California is a bit bigger than Canada So pretty close 38 and 35.

[1157] And then those are pretty comparable to, like, the larger European countries?

[1158] That's like...

[1159] L .A. is 20 million.

[1160] L .A .'s 20 million?

[1161] Yeah.

[1162] Wow.

[1163] That's what the 20 million came from.

[1164] But that's just without Mexicans.

[1165] They have no idea how many people really are here.

[1166] Right.

[1167] It could easily be 30.

[1168] Yeah.

[1169] Or 40.

[1170] There's a lot of people here that are undocumented.

[1171] Yeah.

[1172] That's a crazy thing.

[1173] Yeah, the actual numbers.

[1174] I mean, I'm sure they probably have some sort of a vague idea, but unless they're going from neighborhood to neighborhood scanning.

[1175] I mean, how do they know?

[1176] Yeah.

[1177] That's the whole idea that they're here illegally.

[1178] There's no documentation.

[1179] Yeah, I guess you could like...

[1180] You could guess somehow or another.

[1181] Yeah, you could track indicators of economic activity, like how many fucking bags of rice are being pulled at the supermarket.

[1182] Racist!

[1183] I don't know if that would work.

[1184] I mean, track how much food is sold in L .A. That has to be pretty closely correlated with how many people there are here.

[1185] I guess.

[1186] But how much cash business do they do?

[1187] That's where things get really squarely because a lot of folks in the illegal community, they work for cash.

[1188] They spend cash on their bills.

[1189] But you spend cash at the grocery store.

[1190] The grocery store has a record of that.

[1191] They don't know who spent it, but they know how much food they're selling.

[1192] But it would be racist to check because you'd have to check those weird markets.

[1193] It's weird Spanish names.

[1194] You drive by, like, you go down Van Olin, and you see those.

[1195] I mean, you check all the markets.

[1196] Yeah, I guess.

[1197] And then just calculate how many people are buying that food.

[1198] Look at you, you clever bastard.

[1199] He treated it like a goddamn poker game.

[1200] So how long have you been in Malta now?

[1201] Since September 2011, so like three years.

[1202] And any plans on, what about, like, Monaco or in those other places where you can...

[1203] Monaco is creepy.

[1204] Is it?

[1205] is it creepy everyone there has so much fucking money and they're so snobby so says the guy who made a million six his first year playing poker eh those fucking rich assholes you know how like you'll see a car drive by in the states it'll have like a handwritten sign in the window for sale $15 ,000 call this number yes in monaco you'll see that only it'll be like the fucking McLaren or something for sale one 1 .5 million euro.

[1206] Really?

[1207] A sign in the window.

[1208] Come on.

[1209] I've seen that in Monaco.

[1210] A McLaren for sale?

[1211] Like, with a little handmade sign?

[1212] I don't know shit about cars.

[1213] I may get some the wrong name.

[1214] I know.

[1215] But, yeah.

[1216] Real fucking expensive sports cars.

[1217] Wow.

[1218] That sounds crazy.

[1219] Why wouldn't they go to a broker?

[1220] The taxis there are all Cadillacs.

[1221] If you have that much money, why wouldn't you go to, if you have enough money for a fucking McLaren.

[1222] There's different McLaren's.

[1223] Yeah.

[1224] There's, I've talked about this in the podcast before.

[1225] People got upset at me, but there's this, I was saying that McLaren's don't sound very good.

[1226] And then they said, what about this sounds awesome?

[1227] That's the million -dollar McLaren.

[1228] It's a million -plus -dollar McLaren has this amazing sound to it.

[1229] But the regular McLaren that's like, I think, 200 plus thousand, it doesn't sound bad.

[1230] It just doesn't sound like a Ferrari.

[1231] Like Ferraris have this.

[1232] Part of the beauty of a Ferrari is the sound it makes.

[1233] the pat like the people underestimate that that's one of the reasons why turbocharged cars aren't appealing to a lot of real sports cars fanatics because they just don't have the same sound because of the forced induction with the air it just doesn't doesn't gives the same exhaust sound so much so that a lot of turbo like some of the new turbocharged cars what they're actually doing is they're faking the sound so there's a thing called the sound synthesizer that they use on the BMW m5 you could turn it off praise Allah because it's really gross and when you have it on it's actually pumping sounds like engine sounds through your speakers so it uses a sound system of the car to make you think that you're making all this engine noise which car is this the BMW M5 which is a brilliant automobile but they just tacked that on because it was too quiet by default well they used to have a V10 and the V10 was a monster engine it was just an incredible incredible engine and it made so much cool noise.

[1234] It was just like this fucking throaty, deep powerful, pretty sure it was a V10 hold on a second, BMW V10, I pulled it off real quick.

[1235] WV10 and they switched to a turbocharged engine, yeah, yeah, it was a V10.

[1236] So they switched to a turbocharged engine for the new one.

[1237] It has more power, more torque, it's faster, but it just doesn't sound as good.

[1238] just doesn't you know the one that it you know it used to have this incredible whale to it that's like here i'll play it for you it sound like a Ferrari like Ferraris have this that's uh part of the that's the delay yeah let me find this fucker um so anyway what i was saying about monaco is that more than any other place i've ever been in the world there's this feeling that you don't belong there and that nobody is happy about the fact that you turned up.

[1239] Nobody's happy about the fact that you turned up.

[1240] Like, there's one big poker tournament a year in Monaco that I have been to several times, and like, all the hotel staff and cab drivers and everybody else like that that I've interacted with there just seems like surprised and put off that you're there?

[1241] That there's like, Like, some young American dude who doesn't speak French who is in Monaco.

[1242] Really?

[1243] So it's just a millionaire, billionaire, playboy place.

[1244] Yeah.

[1245] And they want it for the rich French -speaking people.

[1246] Hmm.

[1247] But doesn't like George Clooney live there or some shit?

[1248] Yeah, I mean, there are a bunch of people who are not French.

[1249] But he's probably got, like, chateaus all around the world.

[1250] For sure he does.

[1251] Chateau.

[1252] A shot, too.

[1253] That sort of BMW with a V -10 sounds like.

[1254] That's a serious engine?

[1255] The new one sounds like a little bitch.

[1256] But the new one's a better car.

[1257] To catch -22.

[1258] It's like, what are you going to do?

[1259] If you keep going with these bigger, crazy, throaty engines, they just eat the gas, and they kill the seals in the Arctic shit.

[1260] Drown the polar bears, the frozen glaciers, and all that good stuff.

[1261] What is the economy like in this multi -place?

[1262] Like, what's it construction?

[1263] a lot of it at this point has to do with foreign companies many of them in the online gaming industry a lot also just in banking and finance and stuff like that is there tricky laws there or something is that why they move there yeah it's uh some of the lowest tax rates in the EU.

[1264] So like many small countries, it's like, you know, Antigo or St. Kitts, or there are a bunch of like island nations near the U .S. that have carved out a niche for themselves as tax havens and business -friendly economies.

[1265] Malta has a bit of that going on as well.

[1266] So do you have to, because you maintain your United States citizenship, do you have to pay taxes there and here as well?

[1267] Is that how it works?

[1268] Only here.

[1269] If I had become a resident like I was planning to, which I never really finished that story.

[1270] If I had become a resident like I was planning to, yes, I would owe taxes there.

[1271] They have a tax treaty with the U .S. so I can deduct what I pay there against what I would owe here.

[1272] you don't end up getting double -taxed.

[1273] But since I'm not a resident, no, I have no tax liability anywhere other than the U .S. But if you do become a resident somewhere else, you have to give up your residence here, right?

[1274] No, not always.

[1275] Not always?

[1276] Really?

[1277] I mean, in this case, not at all.

[1278] This isn't becoming a citizen.

[1279] This is just becoming a permanent resident.

[1280] So I don't get a Maltese passport or anything like that.

[1281] I get like a sticker that goes inside my U .S. passport.

[1282] saying that I am a registered permanent resident.

[1283] Yeah, there's a thing like that with Mexico.

[1284] Yeah.

[1285] If you had a resident visa or something like that.

[1286] You can stay like six months at a time and then you have to go back and forth.

[1287] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1288] There are all kinds of visas for every country has their own set of rules and different rules that apply to citizens of different other countries.

[1289] And do you enjoy this, this living in Malta and doing your online gambling there?

[1290] yeah um it's a pretty decent place to live um if i could live anywhere in the world and to keep playing online poker there's a decent chance i'd pick somewhere like san francisco over malta why san francisco i just really like it there i was like getting ready to move to there from Vegas just before the doj crackdown just because of the atmosphere of the town yeah it's just a nice place is a great plays very smart yeah one of the smartest cities i think in the country it's uh also like one of the most tech savvy there's so much so many tech people there a lot of complaints though the um the folks who uh were there for a long time are complaining about the real estate prices you're shot through the roof where regular people can't even afford to live there anymore they can't afford to buy houses because i've i looked at the housing prices oh in san francisco it's a ridiculous a four million dollar house it's like this like regular house like how is that a four million dollar house that's not a four million dollar house maybe it's not a four million dollar house i have friends who live in uh atherton do you know where that is no it's the richest it's one of the richest neighborhoods in the country okay and it's just outside of san francisco and it's fucking preposterous like their house is worth 15 million dollars and it's not worth 15 million dollars it's just not yeah it's just they have a large backyard but it means not large, if you live in Kansas, or, you know, Nebraska or anywhere else, it's just large for this one fucking area where it's just ridiculous real estate.

[1291] I mean, it doesn't make any sense.

[1292] Like, you look at this, you're like, how could you ever pay $15 million for this fucking house?

[1293] It doesn't make any sense.

[1294] Yeah, that shit's crazy to me. But it's called all this wacky fucking billionaire Google people live out there.

[1295] Right.

[1296] It's just too much money.

[1297] So, yeah, I mean, it's supply and demand.

[1298] People want to live in this one spot.

[1299] There's limited space and those people have a whole lot of money it drives me crazy though that you can't live here not that I love you so much but it just drives me crazy that you have to like leave the country to do what you do for a living because of some fucking goofy laws that were obviously put in place by criminals or people that are just shady as fuck yeah I don't love it no it's fucking awful it's awful so if it does change will it be like a something that's going to happen, you know, within the next decade, or is it like...

[1300] I think so.

[1301] Yeah, I mean...

[1302] Does, like, PokerStars .net, do they try to work on that?

[1303] Are they...

[1304] Yeah.

[1305] There is a pretty good chance that they will be in the New Jersey market in the next year or so.

[1306] Because you need to get regulatory approval.

[1307] And obviously, the U .S. casino interests are trying to keep...

[1308] poker stars out.

[1309] It's not a company owned by Americans.

[1310] They should just send donuts to that Chris Christy guy's house over and over and over again.

[1311] He'll let them in.

[1312] Donuts and hot dogs and maybe cheese pizza.

[1313] Just keep sending food to that guy's house.

[1314] He'll say yes.

[1315] He loves food.

[1316] He loves food probably as much as he loves money and money buys food and this is like you cut out the middle man. Just send him the food.

[1317] It looks like he's pretty enthusiastic about food.

[1318] Yeah, he's not enthusiastic about Tesla's.

[1319] He won't allow them to direct sell Tesla's, which is just shady as fuck.

[1320] I don't know about that.

[1321] You didn't know about that?

[1322] No, what's the story with that?

[1323] I'll Google it, so I have all the information, so I don't fuck anything out.

[1324] But Tesla, New Jersey, Christy, he's just gross.

[1325] Christy says Tesla criticism is complete crap.

[1326] He's such a fucking slob.

[1327] conservative criticism over his administration's decision to stop Tesla from selling cars in its showrooms in New Jersey's complete crap.

[1328] The fact is we looked away for a year to allow Tesla to do what they were doing, and we couldn't look away any longer.

[1329] Look away.

[1330] What does that mean?

[1331] They had already been selling cars in New Jersey.

[1332] They have a law in the books that they could interpret to stop them from doing that, but they didn't for a little while and then decided they would.

[1333] The company cannot sell their cars from the showroom They have two showrooms But the company cannot sell their cars from the showrooms Or offer their customers test drives The Jersey law on the book since the 1970s Requires cars to be sold through the traditional dealership model Okay, he says, I don't like the law either I didn't vote for it, I didn't sign it But I don't get to just ignore the laws that I don't like Hmm, okay, well that actually makes sense Yeah, so He probably was spitting food out when he said it, though.

[1334] Probably had shit flying out of his teeth.

[1335] Somebody sued or whatever, and they couldn't ignore it?

[1336] No, maybe.

[1337] Yeah, probably.

[1338] Something, or someone paid someone off or something like that.

[1339] Right.

[1340] It's just gross.

[1341] I just, I don't understand.

[1342] First of all, it doesn't make any sense.

[1343] Like, why would you have a law like that in place?

[1344] The only reason why a law like that would be in place because someone paid somebody off.

[1345] It doesn't make any sense.

[1346] I guess in theory the idea is you should need to have a license to sell cars.

[1347] Otherwise, you might sell people real shitty cars that fall apart and then disappear and not be accountable for selling people cars that don't work.

[1348] Yeah, well, I guess.

[1349] The rule was actually a result of a backroom deal.

[1350] Electric Carmakers chairman charges.

[1351] Hmm, okay, the anti -Tesla rule.

[1352] A new rule that effectively bans direct -to -consumer car sales.

[1353] This is what it's saying in this one article that is in New Jersey .com.

[1354] Oh, this is sounding pretty suspect.

[1355] It's specifically direct to consumer.

[1356] So, like, there has to be a middleman broker.

[1357] You have to have a manufacturer who sells to a dealer who sells to a consumer.

[1358] And Tesla was selling manufacturer to consumer.

[1359] And so they had to crack down on that.

[1360] Is that what's going on?

[1361] Elon Musk, the way he said it, he said, that if you believe that the law in the books protecting dealers are there for the good of consumer, then Governor Christie has a bridge closure that he wants to sell you.

[1362] Yeah.

[1363] Which is, of course, in reference to the scandal or that slob closed down a bridge for whatever political reason.

[1364] It had nothing to do with safety or the health and welfare of the citizens some political pressure.

[1365] Governor Christie has promised that this would be put to a vote of the elected.

[1366] state legislature, which is the appropriate way to change the law, Musk said, when it became apparent to the auto dealer lobby, oh, okay.

[1367] When it became apparent to the auto dealer lobby that this approach would not succeed, they cut a backroom deal with the governor to circumvent the legislative process and pass a regulation that is fundamentally contrary to the intent of the law.

[1368] Okay, so he's a bullshit artist.

[1369] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1370] Sounds about right.

[1371] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1372] So New Jersey's got a bunch of issues.

[1373] This is also the same guy who's morbidly obese but said that he's going to stop marijuana from being legal in his town that it won't be legal in his state rather on his watch because of the children you know how about the children looking at you as their leader this morbidly obese person that's giving out any health related advice whatsoever you know just drives me fucking bananas that kind of shit and of course they have I don't have anything against fat people being elected to office but I do yeah yeah morbidly obese I just don't think it's right really no oh okay I'm fucking around I mean if they're really no if they're really good at their job fuck yeah they should be fat but he's not good at his job doesn't seem that way he's fat and he's a hypocrite it's just well I you know my issue became only with the marijuana thing which is marijuana is near and dear to my heart.

[1374] I think it's a fucking fantastic plant and I think it aids evolution.

[1375] And so I see some non -involved morbidly obese person who doesn't care about his health and he's trying to push what he's talking about it from a health perspective, you know, worrying about the children.

[1376] Not only that, he's citing studies that he doesn't understand, not biased studies that he doesn't understand at all.

[1377] Yeah, the government studies on that stuff and ignoring...

[1378] Real shady.

[1379] Yeah, ignoring all the positive benefit studies that have just time and time again been pushed aside because of their agenda.

[1380] Well, yeah.

[1381] I mean, in my opinion, you don't even need to demonstrate that there's anything positive about it for it to be clear that it should be legal.

[1382] Just from a harm reduction standpoint, people are going to smoke weed whether or not you tell them it's legal.

[1383] And if you make it illegal, then they're going to have to deal with criminals to do it.

[1384] And they're going to be putting themselves in danger.

[1385] And there's going to be more crime, the associated crime, that goes with that and not only that people are going to be locked up which is more harm yeah which is ridiculous blocking people up for nonviolent drug offenses is archaic it's stupid in fact the world health organization just recently called for a decriminalization of all drugs i saw that yeah fascinating absolutely fascinating i think it's absolutely the right thing it is the right thing if you can have drugs and you can have drugs there's god damn plenty of drugs there's been gone over this a thousand times but go to any corner liquor store and you could drink yourself to death.

[1386] Go to any drugstore, there's a liquor aisle that's filled with enough booze to kill dozens of people.

[1387] Oh, yeah.

[1388] We live in a preposterously hypocritical society.

[1389] Is Malta like that?

[1390] Can you get good weed in Malta?

[1391] What's it like?

[1392] No, Malta is pretty repressive on the drug laws.

[1393] Really?

[1394] It's a Catholic country.

[1395] Ah, those fucks.

[1396] So what happens if you get caught with a joint in Malta?

[1397] Ah.

[1398] Death.

[1399] Potentially a good bit of time in jail.

[1400] Real?

[1401] A joint?

[1402] I don't know.

[1403] The fucked up thing with Malta drug laws is that they really don't draw a lot of distinctions between one drug and the next.

[1404] And there's a bit of a growing heroin problem there.

[1405] And so there's a bit of a push for harsher drug laws to crack down on that.

[1406] And there have been a couple cases of that.

[1407] of that spilling over into weed and people getting in a lot of trouble for a relatively small amount of weed.

[1408] That kind of makes sense.

[1409] That does happen in a lot of these smaller countries or countries that are just not as sophisticated.

[1410] They tend to lump drugs together, and oftentimes they also tend to prosecute people based on the weight of the plant, and they pick up the pot with the plant, like the pot, like the, you know, they're growing in, the dirt, the soil itself, and they count all that as you're, you know like if you found someone who had marijuana plants in their house and you know you weighed everything it's like probably a few ounces of smokeable marijuana but it's like many pounds yeah of stuff associated with it yeah it's like a sneaky little fucking loophole that prosecutors use you know it's just gross it's just it's just when you make you make criminals out of people that are just doing what they want to do that doesn't harm anybody else it's It's just a loophole, and it just shows you that you have too many laws.

[1411] I mean, that's what it is.

[1412] It becomes bureaucracy, it becomes red tape, and it becomes a machine that needs fuel to feed itself.

[1413] It's getting to the point that everyone's a criminal and that they can just pick and choose who needs to be taken down and sent to jail.

[1414] And so that the criminal justice system just becomes a vehicle for discrimination and oppression.

[1415] because if you interpret the laws to the maximum stringency, we're all felons for a million different reasons.

[1416] A bunch of the shit you do on the Internet's a felony.

[1417] A bunch of the shit you own in your house is a felony.

[1418] If you do both of those, you're fucking double criminal.

[1419] Yeah.

[1420] Smoking pot and gambling online, you dirty bastard.

[1421] Or you're just downloading videos that you didn't pay for.

[1422] Yeah.

[1423] Yeah, well, that's a tricky one, man. That's a tricky one because I think that as time goes on and it does seem to be changing in making access to legal, purchasable versions of these movies and things, seems to be much, much, much easier than it used to be a while back.

[1424] And, you know, I'm not in favor of putting anyone in jail for downloading things, but you're going to have to deal with what is a downloadable copy of something.

[1425] I mean, what is that?

[1426] For sure.

[1427] There's a lot of ethical argument.

[1428] both ways.

[1429] I like the argument that the people that have downloaded things when they, you know, start calling them piracy, they go, no, it's not piracy because it was piracy, I would take yours and you wouldn't have it anymore.

[1430] Right.

[1431] It's a copy.

[1432] And that's so true.

[1433] And this is just, it's one more example of how people want to use these black and white sort of definitions of things that exist for physical, you know, carbon -based hard things that you can put on a scale.

[1434] that you simply can't do when it comes to digital content.

[1435] You just can't.

[1436] You can't do it.

[1437] Applying property laws to ideas gets pretty complicated.

[1438] Especially ideas where you're not stealing the idea for a profit.

[1439] Right.

[1440] Like when you're taking someone...

[1441] They're just enjoying the idea without paying for it.

[1442] Yeah, it's weird, right?

[1443] And I'm not saying that's okay to do.

[1444] I'm not either.

[1445] My dad's a writer.

[1446] There are professional artists in my family who need to make a living.

[1447] by selling their art and if you can get all the art you want for free that's fucking them over it is but i think that there's room in this country for uh ethical consideration by the consumer so like to put it this way like remember when napster was around there was a bunch of people that were downloading things for free off a napster they were doing the peer to peer thing but a lot of people had this sort of really cool ethical consideration where they would take like if they got something and they liked it they would go buy it yeah they would say hey i owe this guy this fucking album kicks ass i'll go buy it right you know and they also would become fans of the band and then they would go see the band live which is even better for the band because then it's more profitable for the band sure as opposed to like the record where they get kind of pennies on the dollar they would get a much larger chunk you know so there's there's a lot of shit going on you know you know so there's a lot of shit going on you You know, I mean, how is it different that you can download music for free?

[1448] How is that different in some ways than the radio?

[1449] Is it just because it's a better copy?

[1450] Because the fucking radio is playing your music all day long.

[1451] Because you have to pay for your radio music by listening to the ads in between.

[1452] Right, right.

[1453] But aren't you paying for your bandwidth that you use to download it?

[1454] I mean, it all gets squirrely.

[1455] Yeah, it's all pretty complicated.

[1456] And my point in bringing that up wasn't that I think it's wrong that there are are laws regulating what you can and can't download without paying for it, but just that it creates a fucked up situation when the laws are such that if the government decides to, they've got a reason to put fucking anyone they want in jail.

[1457] Well, especially now that they're literally downloading every single voicemail that you've ever said, every single email that you send from now till fucking who knows when will be in some NSA database somewhere and they might go look through your shit and who knows you might have said something completely joking like this uh look this poker shit isn't working out so I'm going to start robbing babies and fucking you know whatever shooting banks up and take yeah of course and then they say oh that's criminal intent and this is a terrorist threat the super fucked up thing that they do is they I'm pretty sure this is accurate um if I'm spouting conspiracy theory bullshit here someone call me out on it but I'm pretty pretty sure they find that shit.

[1458] They leak the information to the FBI or to local police who then basically conduct a sham investigation to find the information legally so that they can use it in court.

[1459] But they already know what they're looking for because the NSA got it illegally and just gave it to them.

[1460] Yes.

[1461] That's exactly what they do.

[1462] Yeah.

[1463] Yeah.

[1464] So that should be illegal.

[1465] Yeah.

[1466] That shit's insane.

[1467] That's sneaky as fuck.

[1468] Well, depending on pound what you're doing, and that's where it gets squirly.

[1469] If it turns out you're involved in trafficking, human trafficking, and, you know, selling children to sex slavery.

[1470] Yeah, there's shit that's bad enough that it becomes a difficult question of what rights you can trample to keep people from doing that.

[1471] Yeah, but there's got to be a better way.

[1472] Just got to be a better way.

[1473] And also, if our society was just and if all the laws that were in place were in place in order to actually protect people.

[1474] protect people from being victimized by bad people but that's not what's going on especially when you're dealing with most drug laws no one's getting victimized by pot they're just not they tried to push it for a while that they were do you remember when they used to have those commercials where these two fucking no -nonsense guys would be eating dinner and like the guy would be saying that if you buy drugs you support terrorism period right and you tell it kept eating like to tell you like it was like giving you this feeling of authority like it's your dad it's tired of your fucking stupid nonsense they've been talking with your friends around it's like no listen listen period end of discussion if you buy drugs you're supporting terrorism and he's eating the salad so I'm like what the fuck is this what is this weird psychological message you guys are trying to do you remember that day you know what I'm talking about he's like no I'm pretty sure my buddy Dave knows a guy named Jeff who are these mushrooms in his closet Yeah.

[1475] Well, especially with pot.

[1476] I mean, I was buying it directly from the guys who were growing it.

[1477] So, like, there's no terrorism involved there, man. They might have terrorized some fertilizer.

[1478] Pop the top and poured it to the ground.

[1479] No!

[1480] It was just so silly.

[1481] I mean, there is a little truth to that.

[1482] Like, if you buy cocaine, somewhere up the chain, there are some fucked up people involved in getting cocaine to you.

[1483] Mm -hmm.

[1484] And you know why?

[1485] because cocaine's illegal if cocaine was legal you'd be buying it from Merck or fucking you know Galaxo Smith Klein or something like that they'd be selling cocaine there of course just ethically hey just like Jack Daniels they have a commercial for Jack Daniels have you seen it I mean is what do you yeah pull it up let's watch this fucking goofy ass commercial because this is it's quite hilarious how they treat you like you're a fucking monkey that's particularly Look at this.

[1486] Yeah, this is exactly it.

[1487] This is so funny.

[1488] Watch this.

[1489] It's a ploy.

[1490] What?

[1491] This drug money funds terror.

[1492] It's a ploy.

[1493] A manipulation.

[1494] Ploy.

[1495] Drug money funds terror.

[1496] I mean, why should I believe that?

[1497] Because it's a fact.

[1498] A fact.

[1499] F -C -T fact.

[1500] So you're saying that I should believe it because it's true.

[1501] That's your argument.

[1502] It is true.

[1503] so the guy in the left the first guy is a moron the handsome guy and the older gentleman is like his it's the dumbest fucking ad ever because there's nothing being said it's two dickheads what is why is that convincing who thought that was a good idea because people are scared of their dad it's convincing for people that are scared of their dad not only yeah who's gonna fucking see that and go i don't want that guy eating salad to be mad at me so i'm not going to buy drugs like completely ineffective Like absolutely 100 % ineffective Like not one person Watched that ad and didn't do drugs Matter of fact I did more drugs Because of that ad I got mad and I did extra drugs Because it's so fucking stupid They treat you like you're a moron Like somehow or another That's all you have to say Like first of all That was pre -internet This is like 2001 Not pre -internet But pre -the effect of the internet And social media Social media really changed the whole game The way people communicate And they understand information that was pre -social media because you can't have those kind of arguments.

[1504] You just can't.

[1505] You can't say because it's fact, F -A -C -T.

[1506] Oh, you can fucking spell fact.

[1507] You must be right.

[1508] I'm sold.

[1509] Have that guy come over here and sit him down for a podcast for three hours.

[1510] I'll dissect that, dude.

[1511] I'll send him through the fucking vit -a -mix.

[1512] Splice him up, silly bitch.

[1513] It's ridiculous.

[1514] It's a ridiculous way to express an opinion.

[1515] Yeah.

[1516] You, you know, first of all, you can't make an argument.

[1517] about terrorism and drugs in a 30 -second commercial.

[1518] It's just physically not possible.

[1519] Yeah, it's a really complicated issue.

[1520] It is as complex as biological life itself.

[1521] I mean, it is unbelievably complex.

[1522] If you want to break down the root cause of addiction, where drugs come from, what is a drug, what are the effects?

[1523] Why does this one -term drug?

[1524] Why is it a blanket that we throw over things that save lives, that enhance cognitive function?

[1525] and productivity like caffeine and things that kill you and things that are bad for you and things that makes you know life more interesting there's all together under this one big blanket called drugs so if you're saying if you buy drugs you support terrorism if you have a cup of coffee after your meal I'm going to stab you because you're a fucking drug user you crazy asshole you're going to have a whiskey on the rocks like a gentleman you piece of shit it's just like it's madness it's like and that's all the kind of shit that was available that they or was out there before you know the social media aspect of the internet made that preposterous could you imagine the Twitter response if somebody tried to put a fucking video like that you know hashtag yes all drugs hashtag yes all drugs would be the fucking the parody attack of it they're still out there they're still putting out not like that pretty not that bad I guess what is one that you could think of um Jamie see if you can look up recent anti -drug propaganda commercial because I don't think they do them anymore I really think that they're so idiotic if one child went without a school lunch that was funded by the state if one teacher got paid one extra dollar someone who made that video should get their dick kicked into a fucking meaty pulp because it's just it's just a waste of money it's a waste of taxpayer money not only that most of that shit when you see that remember that talking dog Like, Lindsay, I wish you wouldn't do drugs That was the one I was about to bring up, isn't that pretty recent?

[1526] Fairly, it was on my 2009 comedy special So I'm assuming that it was 2007 or eight And it was just mocked mercilessly Yeah I wish you wouldn't smoke pot You're not the same when you smoke pot I miss my friend Fucking retarded Sponsorship that's all made by a partnership for a drug for America The problem with that of course is a partner for a drug -free America has received millions of dollars from alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies.

[1527] Yeah, of course.

[1528] My joke was that that's like hookers making commercials against strippers.

[1529] That's really what it's like.

[1530] Pretty much.

[1531] Like, alcohol companies making commercials against pot are pharmaceutical drug commercials making commercials against pot.

[1532] It's preposterous.

[1533] It's just idiotic.

[1534] Is there more?

[1535] Is there something recent?

[1536] There's the foundation for a drug -free world.

[1537] Oh, a world filled with...

[1538] First of all, before we talk about this.

[1539] If you're interested in any of this stuff, like really in depth, I recommend Dr. Carl Hart's work.

[1540] Dr. Carl Hart, who has been a podcast guest, and what was his name of his book?

[1541] Remember his book?

[1542] Here, I'll pull it up real quick.

[1543] Dr. Carl Hart.

[1544] He had a great point.

[1545] And one of his...

[1546] High price.

[1547] High price.

[1548] Yeah.

[1549] He's brilliant.

[1550] Just a brilliant guy.

[1551] And he's the associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University.

[1552] and he is well known for his research in drug use and abuse and his statement is so clear it's just the best statement not only is there never going to be a drug -free America or drug -free world you wouldn't want it yeah of course you wouldn't like why would you drugs are technology you know the the reason they exist is because they're effective is because we have figured out there's ways that we can manipulate the way our mind works the way our body works the way our body feels for good and for bad and like all things in life human beings have tools and those tools can be abused or they can be used and they can be used to the greater good of mankind and that's a drug is just like that it's just like a tool absolutely what is it do you have a commercial there's a bunch of them just play one of these goofy fucking things in the united states have tried drugs or alcohol by the time they're 13 years old a third of teens gone to house parties where there was alcohol, pot, cocaine, ecstasy, or prescription drugs.

[1553] Over half of kids say it would be used for them to get pot if they wanted some.

[1554] Seven out of ten teenagers have been offered an illegal drug.

[1555] Teenagers whose parents talk to them about drugs are 42 % less likely to use drugs.

[1556] Okay, well that's a good commercial.

[1557] I mean, that's like talk to your kids.

[1558] That makes sense.

[1559] Yeah, that really wasn't bad.

[1560] Also, seven out of ten kids get offered drugs in high school.

[1561] I want to know who those other three are.

[1562] Those fucking losers.

[1563] No, he's offering you drugs?

[1564] Come on, man. What fucking parties are you going to?

[1565] You're not getting something?

[1566] Yeah, don't take pills.

[1567] You don't know what they are, all right?

[1568] Don't do heroin.

[1569] That shit's addictive.

[1570] But the only way we learn all these things is by, you know, the ability to freely communicate and express each other.

[1571] Express thoughts, rather.

[1572] Like Portugal has instituted a countrywide, decriminalization of all drugs a while ago yeah and it's going great the results have been fantastic yeah lower crime lower drug addiction you know lower cases of HIV infection it's just across the board across the board yeah you you can't suppress people you know I I know this as a parent um I try very hard to not suppress my children I try to explain to them what's good or bad about doing things explain to them the dangers of things but give them like I don't I don't want to be the boss, you know.

[1573] I just want to be the person who can tell them things that they don't know yet and do it because I love them.

[1574] But when you, as soon as you fucking tell people like, because it's a drug, because it's a fact, F -H -C -T -fact.

[1575] I just want to beat you to death, you fucking dunce, you shitty propaganda machine walking around with a fucking pair of glasses eating salad.

[1576] Asshole.

[1577] Asshole face.

[1578] Just such a fucking shitty commercial.

[1579] That's my least favorite commercial, I think.

[1580] ever because it's a fact f -h -g -t -fact so you're telling me that it's a fact I'm telling you you're both assholes the first guy's an asshole who talks about anything like that because it's a fact your dad it's like a dad thing that guy is like a dad I have a friend who has a dad like that yeah I know people who have dads like that I can't talk to him because I'd be like you're a dunce and that's why your son doesn't accept your thoughts you don't even understand this he gets away from you he mocks you.

[1581] Okay, I got to go because I can't have this conversation.

[1582] I'll fucking yell at you in your own house.

[1583] I wouldn't really, but...

[1584] But that thing, that fucking Mr. No Nonsense guy, that Mr. No Nonsense guy intimidates people.

[1585] Because it's fact.

[1586] F -H -C -T fact.

[1587] Do you...

[1588] Anybody who fucking spells fact out like that?

[1589] You should be able to just spit on them.

[1590] Just...

[1591] It should be an automatic...

[1592] What the fuck?

[1593] It seems like the appropriate response.

[1594] SPIT spit.

[1595] It's not a salt, but it's gross.

[1596] Clearly too late for an intellectual discussion.

[1597] Yeah, you're going to hit him.

[1598] I hit him with rocks.

[1599] Fucking pee on his leg or something.

[1600] I've taken this fucking way out of the boundaries of normal thinking.

[1601] Assholes.

[1602] But, you know, those kind of commercials are really insidious.

[1603] They're insidious, and the roots of them is what's the most disturbing.

[1604] When you find out this partnership for a drug -free America is just, it's a essentially just a business boy yeah it's the alcohol lobby protecting their market yeah i mean it's so weird it's just it's so weird especially like you know what it would be like well that's not not really good enough i would i was saying that it'd be like a really shitty movie that's attacking like a really awesome movie you know for for being you know because they don't want you to be because that's what it's like kind of in a way it's just that no nonsense guys it's just that that is something that that like, for whatever reason, like even the ineffective way that the first guy communicated, the way he, so you're trying to tell me, that's what you're trying to tell me?

[1605] Like, you know, he's not telling you anything.

[1606] Are you guys both dumb?

[1607] Like, you guys are idiots.

[1608] This conversation sucks, and this is the reason why people shouldn't be allowed to vote.

[1609] You two dummies.

[1610] You two dummies having this fucking salad argument.

[1611] It's weird.

[1612] And Malta, worse, huh?

[1613] In terms of drug laws, yeah, it's pretty bad.

[1614] You can end up in jail for a very long time, for not very much.

[1615] You do some fucking Midnight Express type shit, right?

[1616] You ever see that movie?

[1617] I don't know.

[1618] I don't know.

[1619] It's a movie where the guy.

[1620] I've seen no movies ever.

[1621] It's embarrassing.

[1622] Really?

[1623] Yeah.

[1624] Do you just playing poker like a madman?

[1625] How many hours a day you play poker?

[1626] Ah, not that much.

[1627] I mean...

[1628] 20?

[1629] I'd say like, I probably average 30 to 50 hours a week.

[1630] Oh, okay.

[1631] 50 hours a week is still like a real work job.

[1632] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1633] So it's a real job.

[1634] It varies a lot Throughout the year Yes, it is a lot of sitting It's not good for you Yeah, terrible for you Sitting is the new smoking Have you not heard?

[1635] I have heard that phrase And I kind of buy it I mean My back is way too fucked up For a 28 year old Is it really fucked up Do you stretch out Or do yoga or anything like that?

[1636] I stretch a bit But nothing organized Not as good as it should be Yeah, you can get some bulging discs That way to a degeneration of discs I don't think it's gone that far yet But Yeah, I was wearing I was using this thing for a while, which is pretty cool, this knee thing.

[1637] But I decided that I like sitting up straight in this better than I like sitting on that thing.

[1638] It doesn't have.

[1639] You know what these things are?

[1640] You ever see these?

[1641] Here, I'll put it on.

[1642] It's like a kneeling chair.

[1643] Yeah, I do know those.

[1644] I thought about buying one of those to sit on while playing poker and didn't do it.

[1645] Well, there's good and bad to it.

[1646] It's not the most comfortable thing.

[1647] But it definitely forces you to sit up straight.

[1648] A buddy of mine has started playing from a treadmill desk.

[1649] Really?

[1650] So he's on his treadmill while he's...

[1651] It's this like specially designed treadmill desk.

[1652] He's like walking real slowly.

[1653] It's not strenuous because the studies show if you go more than like two miles an hour, it starts impacting your cognitive function.

[1654] He's just walking real slowly, but he's standing up and moving around all day.

[1655] That's clever.

[1656] That's probably way better for you.

[1657] He's liking it a lot.

[1658] I may do that eventually.

[1659] treadmill desk I love it What if it gets to like some virtual reality type shit Some Oculus Rift poker playing That would be kind of dope You're aware of Oculus Rift?

[1660] I'm not You're not?

[1661] Oh but I have to tell you Oculus Rift is the newest latest greatest 3D virtual reality Helmet that they've created Okay My friend Duncan Who's a big proponent of it He loves this shit Because he got a copy Of one of the earlier ones He let me try it on And it was amazing But it was really pixelated It was like Quake 1 Like old school video gamey Like there's no way You could misinterpret what it is Like you know it's not You remember that really old Nintendo one Came out like Virtual Boy Virtual Boy That's why I thought it was That thing was insane Red Red?

[1662] A friend of mine got it And he got a headache Within 30 minutes Some people get headaches Brian got a headache From Oculus Rift But it doesn't give me a headache I think maybe it's the same kind of people That get like a boat sickness Like motion sickness on a boat, seasick.

[1663] That would make sense.

[1664] Yeah, it's an inner ear thing, apparently.

[1665] But I think maybe that's a genetic thing.

[1666] Like, you either get it or you don't get it, because my kids don't get it, but my wife gets it.

[1667] It's weird.

[1668] Because I think my kids get their robustness from the fucking old man. But anyway, this Oculus Rift, apparently it's gotten exponentially better.

[1669] And Duncan called me the other day.

[1670] I was at the improv, and he called me up, and he was fucking frothy.

[1671] He's like, dude, what I just saw?

[1672] he's going to change everything the world is going to change this is bigger than the internet he goes this is bigger this is bigger than the invention of the wheel this is bigger than a he goes it's fucking crazy he was fucking frothing at the mouth i wish i could see his fucking beady eyes like bulging out of his head he was so happy and excited he went to this 3d um virtual reality developers conference thing and he said the newest version of the oculus rift which uh hasn't reached consumers i don't think any of them have right just in the a low -level sense.

[1673] You're like developers.

[1674] Mm -hmm.

[1675] But the newest, greatest one, you go into a room and there's a guy playing piano.

[1676] And the way they filmed it, apparently, they put cameras all over a person's body.

[1677] And so everywhere you look, it's like, you see it as if the camera, like you're looking.

[1678] Like, there's no breakup of the motion.

[1679] It's completely smooth.

[1680] And it's completely HD, three -dimensional, like a movie.

[1681] like you're watching perfect three -dimensional 4K video Jesus yeah and you guys you go into this room and there's a guy playing piano and he talks to you and you get to sit down you can like move near him you can move around him you can go like it's all been filmed like you can change where you're going and the video follows you and he said it's fucking nuts like the sound he said is like 3D stereo sound the guy playing the he goes you feel like you're in a fucking room with this guy he said it just changed it changes everything he was he was going crazy yeah he was going nuts he was going nuts about it and based on his original one that i uh fucked with which was like i said very pixelated very old school like 1990 video gamey type it was uh still pretty fucking cool even then they have ones now where virtual boy was fun wasn't well pull up virtual boy i've never seen that before i've never uh i'm i'm actually enjoying this chair this sort of hell thing on top of a tripod that you lean into and it's just like red lines on a black background if I remember right and there are various video games you can play like flight simulators here it is right here virtual boy that's what the this is what the games looked like basically there's very little detail oh god it's all red like that yeah it was gross Slightly 3D.

[1682] Slight depth.

[1683] Well, pull up Lewis from Unbox Therapy, our pal, Lewis.

[1684] He, Lou has a video on that one that they made with an iPhone.

[1685] It's a cardboard box.

[1686] He had it here.

[1687] Oh, yeah, I heard about this.

[1688] You open it up and then put the pieces all in place and then set your iPhone there, and then you put it on your head.

[1689] It's like so low rent.

[1690] And apparently they made it that low rent on purpose, to mock the Oculus Rift, because the Oculus Rift is this gigantic, huge, you know, silicon, and this is, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, about the Google Cardboard VR headset or VR cardboard cutout that uses your phone to create a headset.

[1691] Does that make any sense?

[1692] Anyways, I recently made a reaction video in which I gave this contraption to a number of individuals who you might recognize and I got some amazing reactions.

[1693] So if you haven't seen that video yet, you should definitely go and check it out, but this one is dedicated to telling you and showing you how this seemingly boring piece of cardboard can turn your phone into a state -of -the -art virtual reality headset.

[1694] So it all starts with this cutout, this cardboard cutout that you construct into what you see here.

[1695] Now, you can actually make this on your own using plans via the cardboard website, so you don't need to purchase one of these.

[1696] Just get your hands some cardboard, use the plans, and you can make it yourself.

[1697] Or you can buy a pre -configured cutout via Amazon if you want something that's a little bit more streamlined and closer to a finished product.

[1698] It's about $10, and I'll link that down in the description.

[1699] Let's cut it off here so Lou gets the hits.

[1700] But it's Unbox Therapy on YouTube, and he's got that.

[1701] You can see that, as well as the recent video of us shooting the iPhone 6 glass with a bow and arrow.

[1702] uh but um he got a copy or hold of the newest uh the glass screen for the iPhone 6 it's this sapphire glass and you can bend it you can scratch it with keys you can it's like really super super durable that that sounds like a thing i would have some use for yeah this is what my iPhone looks like oh there it's taking a beating yeah most of them have um but uh what you can't do with that We found, is shoot an arrow through it.

[1703] Did not deflect.

[1704] Yeah, it did not deflect.

[1705] Went right through it.

[1706] It destroyed it.

[1707] Yeah, arrows and phones don't mix.

[1708] But, you know, how often you're going to get shot by a fucking arrow where you've got a phone on you?

[1709] Probably not often.

[1710] And probably if your phone is ruined, that's not your biggest concern.

[1711] Yeah, if you're getting shot by arrows, your phone is not, it's the least of your concern.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] Yeah, you better be worried about your fucking personal health.

[1714] Some shit's going down, son.

[1715] Being attacked by Mongols or something.

[1716] Usually the arrows don't come.

[1717] one at a time.

[1718] Yeah, I don't know how we got on this virtual reality headset thing.

[1719] Yeah, I don't remember where that started either.

[1720] Oh, I remember because I was thinking Oculus Rift.

[1721] Yeah, well, being able to do it sort of like in the Oculus world, like, I think eventually you're going to be able to grab.

[1722] So you're sitting at a virtual table and looking at virtual cards?

[1723] Or virtual screens in front of you, Minority Report style, and you're moving them around through this Oculus Rift headset and you're standing up while you're on this treadmill and you're walking there.

[1724] That's not too far away, I don't think.

[1725] I bet it's not.

[1726] You know, the, I really love this idea this guy's doing of walking really slowly.

[1727] You know, a lot of people claim, writers especially, claim that they get some of their best ideas while walking.

[1728] Yeah.

[1729] Like they walk specifically and they hold on to a tape recorder while they're walking and then they just talk, like you'll walk their dog or something like that, talking to a tape recorder.

[1730] Yeah, I can see that.

[1731] Yeah.

[1732] there's something about moving like the movement just getting nothing heavy but a little bit of blood flow but your back's fucked up from sitting huh?

[1733] I mean it's not terrible but I want to try this?

[1734] Sure I want to try one of these jammies here get this to you take a few seconds ladies gentlemen this is a kneeling chair I just started doing it recently I did it now and I love it I'm going to try to do podcasts like this stand up do you think there's any benefit in that how many podcasts do you think you could do if you had to stand up would that be good so what do you think about that this isn't bad it's not bad right the standing up thing i've actually been messing around with that a little bit recently i started playing poker using an xbox controller instead of a mouse really and then i don't need to be flat on a desk so i can stand up while i play wow that's pretty cool yeah i'm liking kind of lie on your back.

[1735] What about that?

[1736] What about lying on your back, staring up at the ceiling?

[1737] Put a screen on the ceiling?

[1738] I don't like it.

[1739] I feel like I'm less, I've, like, played poker or just on my laptop lying in bed before.

[1740] I feel like I'm less mentally engaged when I'm lying down.

[1741] I think sitting upright or standing are a lot better.

[1742] Yeah.

[1743] I wonder standing writing.

[1744] Because I think one of the things about...

[1745] Standing desks are getting pretty popular.

[1746] They are.

[1747] But I wonder if they're getting popular for writers.

[1748] Because there's something about writing you don't want to be thinking about what you're doing like you don't want to be thinking about standing you just want to be like getting that flow state yeah yeah i wonder i'm hmm it seems like it would work though yeah i don't see why not dictating would work well i could see dictating standing yeah yeah because you walk around a cell phone or on a phone when you talk and just meander yeah whenever i'm on the phone i'm definitely moving around wandering dictating software is fucking incredible now just the dictating software that you have on your phone the voice recognition software in your phone that's gotten really good it's amazing it's like uh the the the ability to pick it up like uh you could you know you could get on these um these note things on your on your phone and just talk into it and it just picks it up incredibly well like look i'll give you a uh like hello you dirty bitches i'm tired of writing so i just figured i talk in my phone p s fuck you period bam pretty good nailed it absolutely p .s fuck you period the whole thing we live in the future did it put a period or did it put the word period no period if you say period it puts a period you say exclamation point it puts an exclamation point but what if you want to use the word period that's a very good question it's limited in that regard maybe if you say the word period well if you say the Jurassic period Does it write the Jurassic dot or?

[1749] That's a good question.

[1750] Here we go.

[1751] Does it have context?

[1752] The Jurassic period.

[1753] The Jurassic.

[1754] Okay.

[1755] Hold on.

[1756] How about this?

[1757] Period.

[1758] The word.

[1759] Period.

[1760] Hmm.

[1761] The Jurassic P -E -R -I -O -D.

[1762] No. Can it tell us at the end of the sentence if you say, the Jurassic period was a very exciting time.

[1763] Ah, that's a good question.

[1764] The Jurassic period was a time where a lot of dinosaurs got dinosaur pussy, period.

[1765] It's fucking confusing.

[1766] It's confused.

[1767] We try that again.

[1768] Here we were.

[1769] The Jurassic period was a time where a lot of dinosaurs got a lot of dinosaur pussy, period.

[1770] Yep.

[1771] Did it that time.

[1772] Got it?

[1773] Yeah.

[1774] Yeah, so it can tell you're at the end of a sentence.

[1775] Yeah.

[1776] That's pretty sweet.

[1777] That is.

[1778] I guess you keep going.

[1779] Yeah.

[1780] It keeps going.

[1781] It thinks of it as period.

[1782] But if you want to say, no, that happened during the Jurassic period.

[1783] I wonder if you can get the intonation just right that it can tell anyway, or if it's the last word, it always goes to the dot.

[1784] No, that happened during the Jurassic period.

[1785] Ooh, that worked.

[1786] Nice.

[1787] Period, period.

[1788] It works.

[1789] That's how you do it.

[1790] So if you want to say period in the middle, you just keep going.

[1791] If you want to say period, period, then you get the word period and a period.

[1792] All right, we've got it now.

[1793] Dude, we got it, man. We fucking got it.

[1794] We live in the future, ladies and gentlemen.

[1795] But sooner or later, you're going to be able to do that with your Oculus Rift, and it'll just show it to you on a scroll, like one of those king scrolls, a little pier out of thin air.

[1796] How long are you going to do this poker thing?

[1797] This is it for your life?

[1798] You're 28.

[1799] Ride this bitch right into the rocks?

[1800] I mean, at some point I'm not going to be able to compete at the highest level the way I do now.

[1801] That just has to be true, right?

[1802] What age do you think that is?

[1803] 40, 50.

[1804] But why would that be?

[1805] What would it be?

[1806] People's brains slow down.

[1807] Do they, though?

[1808] Do they slow down because of atrophy, because of lack of use?

[1809] Do they slow down because you're dying?

[1810] Like, at what age does that happen?

[1811] There's never been a 70 -year -old chess world champion.

[1812] Ah, how old have they gotten?

[1813] I think 50s?

[1814] 50s.

[1815] I think poker is probably similar, though you can make a living in poker without being one of the best in the world.

[1816] Make a living.

[1817] Yeah.

[1818] Yeah, but it's like...

[1819] It gets to be a lot less fun at that point.

[1820] Yeah, right?

[1821] You're just kind of a journeyman.

[1822] One of those guys that they bring in as an opponent for a boxer and he gets beat up every time.

[1823] Yeah, basically.

[1824] But he's still a test.

[1825] Still a good opponent.

[1826] So by then, you'll be living in Malta.

[1827] you'll be in jail for pot.

[1828] You won't be able to come back to America.

[1829] Do you have like a strategy, like of how many years you want to do this?

[1830] Or are you just like enjoying it right now?

[1831] Enjoying it now and it's just so hard to predict what the landscape of poker will look like.

[1832] What making a living in poker will look like 10 years from now?

[1833] Yeah, I would imagine.

[1834] Especially with the regulations and the laws.

[1835] If everybody just opened everything up, I think it would be quite, fascinating yeah i'm hoping you know i there was a um there's an article that i posted recently about uh what the death the death of politics um it was technology and the death of politics and the idea was that data was going to uh deny politics a lot of what politics is sort of like manipulating data and that the internet and this free access to information is going to sort of cut out most of the forms of politics totally makes sense I would hope that that would also have a similar effect on things like your business because it just, it frustrates me to no end that you have to live in some fucking weird island in the middle of nowhere to avoid being locked in a cage or, you know, just...

[1836] They're not going to lock me in a cage, they're just going to lock the guy who lets me play poker on his site from the U .S. And they're going to steal your money.

[1837] They might steal your money, yeah.

[1838] Steal your fucking money, son.

[1839] The DOJ likes stealing people's money.

[1840] They do.

[1841] They love it.

[1842] It's their best thing they do.

[1843] They do that better than anything.

[1844] The DEA does it too.

[1845] That's what the DEA was doing in California.

[1846] It was hilarious.

[1847] They would bust these pot shops, not charging with anything, take all their money, and then say the case is pending.

[1848] And so they would just steal, you know, a million dollars here, 100 ,000 there.

[1849] It happened to a friend of mine who's another professional poker player, professional gambler.

[1850] He took a trip to, I want to say Puerto Rico.

[1851] I'm pretty sure it was Puerto Rico to play blackjack in a casino there.

[1852] he's an advantage blackjack player the game there was such that he could get an edge counting cards so he made a trip there to make some money and he flew back into I want to say it was the Atlanta airport and he had $80 ,000 in cash on him and he had all the receipts from I sent this bank transfer to the casino because I was going to go gamble there I gambled there they paid me out this money I've got the cash I've got all the receipts clear trail of what he did he got there they said you've got a lot of cash looked kind of like a drug dealer to me mine wow wasn't charged with anything they just took his money and what happened he had to take them to court to get it back and he did win but it took years and a lot of money and if you don't have a lot of money to pursue the case and you don't have the wherewithal to navigate the legal system the way he did and something like that happens to you you're just fucked well not only that eighty thousand dollars it seems like they could be eaten up pretty quickly in legal fees i think he ended up suing for the fees as well so he got paid the money back he got paid his costs back that's nice but still the interest and all that jazz and you don't always win sometimes you're out the 80 they took from you and 60 more you spent chasing it I wonder if that could have been prevented if he had legal representation, like, as he landed or had it cleared in advance.

[1853] You know what I'm saying?

[1854] Instead of trying to go in a deal.

[1855] You can't just travel around with a lawyer everywhere you go and you're a professional gambler.

[1856] No, I didn't mean that.

[1857] I meant, like, contact a lawyer and arrange to have everything taken care of as you get there.

[1858] Is there a way around that?

[1859] I mean.

[1860] Like, if you contacted a lawyer.

[1861] Traveling with cash and declaring it at the border is a thing professional gamblers deal with all the time.

[1862] Have you dealt with that before?

[1863] Yeah.

[1864] And it's no issue.

[1865] It's almost always no problem.

[1866] It's legal to carry money.

[1867] If you're carrying more than $10 ,000 across a border, you have to fill out a form saying you're doing so, but you fill out the form.

[1868] They say, where did you get all this money?

[1869] What are you doing with it?

[1870] And I say, I'm a professional poker player.

[1871] I won it in Vegas, and I'm going to deposit it in my bank account when I get to somewhere else or whatever, and it's fine.

[1872] What's the most cash you've ever traveled with?

[1873] traveled with like had with me on a plane I want to say around 70 ,000 euro what's that in dollars about 100 ,000 damn son walking around with 100K in a briefcase with a fucking big chain attached to your wrist in a bag a bag like a gym bag that's what you want a Nike bag yeah you don't want to look conspicuous if you're moving around handcuffs, handcuffs attached to the fucking, they'll just chop your hand off.

[1874] That's what they do.

[1875] That's what I heard.

[1876] Yeah, it seems like, yeah, the arbitrary limit of 10 ,000 always drove me crazy too.

[1877] Are you covering more than $10 ,000 in cash?

[1878] Like, well, what's $10 ,000 to Bill Gates and what's $10 ,000 to the regular person?

[1879] Right.

[1880] But it's only a reporting requirement.

[1881] It's not like you're not allowed to do it if you have more than that.

[1882] Yeah, so if Bill Gates shows up somewhere and he's, why do you have a billion dollars in cash?

[1883] It's like, because I'm Bill Gates, bitch.

[1884] I just like to roll around with a billion in my pocket Could you even carry a billion dollars on you What's like the is there a thousand dollar bill What's the like the largest?

[1885] $100 bill is the largest Hundreds of the biggest U .S. bill Used to be larger though, right?

[1886] There used to be thousands or maybe even 10 ,000s But they were like not in general circulation They were printed for like banks to hold onto And pass between themselves Oh I see The 500 euro note is I think the largest denomination that's like actually in wide circulation.

[1887] I've read that international crime is mostly done in euros now because it's a lot easier to move around cash in 500 euro notes if it's giant amounts of it.

[1888] That makes sense.

[1889] Because a 500 euro note is like 700 U .S. dollars and takes up the same amount of space as a U .S. 100.

[1890] What is that right there?

[1891] That's $100 ,000.

[1892] Is that real?

[1893] Yeah, it was.

[1894] It was a gold certificate.

[1895] Only printed once in 1934.

[1896] Oh, okay.

[1897] God damn.

[1898] Who's that creepy dude on the car?

[1899] I think it's Woodrow Wilson.

[1900] Creepy looking fuck.

[1901] He's responsible for some shit, guaranteed.

[1902] Looking at his background.

[1903] What is the most money that you ever won in a poker tournament?

[1904] In a poker tournament?

[1905] Any event?

[1906] Yeah.

[1907] The biggest cash I've ever had in a poker tournament was about $3 million.

[1908] I finished second in a tournament in Australia this year that was a $250 ,000 buy -in.

[1909] So you had to spend $250 ,000 to get it?

[1910] Well, like I was mentioning earlier, I took on investors to play in that tournament.

[1911] I didn't put up all the money myself.

[1912] And it was a re -entry tournament, so I busted once on the first day and then bought in again.

[1913] So I spent $500 ,000 on the tournament.

[1914] Oh, my God.

[1915] But you came in second.

[1916] I came in second and ended up making some money.

[1917] How much does that pay to come in second?

[1918] About $3 million.

[1919] I don't actually remember the number off the top of my head.

[1920] I could Google it real quick.

[1921] I think it was 2 .0 .000 something.

[1922] What kind of pressure is there on you once you spend $250 ,000, then you get shanked, and you come back in again.

[1923] It was a rough week.

[1924] It was a series of tournaments there.

[1925] The first one was, or the first big one that I played was the 100K was also re -entry that I was in six times and didn't cash.

[1926] so you spent 600 grand and you didn't cash in a day oh my god and then four days later is the 250k and I show up for that and bust right away you have you have major league balls son giant huge iron fucking balls wow six times in a day it was a rough day oh my god what do you sleep that night what is that night like um you obviously can't do that too many times in a row nobody can right well with that exact one um the reentry period was open until the start of the second day of the tournament so after the first day i was getting blood bathed and down a ton of money and still had to come back the next day and play for real wow and came back and got knocked out for the sixth time on the first hand of the second day jesus christ son so then after that it was a lot of Australian Chiraz and a long, long sleep and then a couple days off and then the 250K.

[1927] Wow, that's crazy.

[1928] That's digging into the account there, huh?

[1929] I'll do some damage.

[1930] So when you look at losses like that and wins, does that make you play more conservatively in upcoming events?

[1931] Or do you just have to play intelligently, period, and just take the losses when they come?

[1932] The place where you get more conservative is your bankroll management.

[1933] rather than your play.

[1934] The play from one hand to the next is really about, you have to put the magnitude of the numbers out of your head and try to make the best play each time it's on you to make a decision.

[1935] So are you in the moment?

[1936] Are you Zen?

[1937] Are you still thinking about that $600 ,000 at you?

[1938] I'm pretty good at just getting myself into the moment.

[1939] The place where you get more conservative is you, lose for a while you have less money than you did before that period started you reevaluate I have only 75 % of the money I did a few months ago should I maybe sell 75 % of my action in this upcoming tournament instead of 50 right I say I say that's the way in which you can get more conservative if you're going through a losing stretch is play for lower stakes what's the biggest losing stretch you've ever gone through um Um, in dollar amount, in period?

[1940] Dollar amounts.

[1941] Uh, let's see.

[1942] I'll give you ever gone through like a couple million dollars in a weekend.

[1943] Um, in games where I didn't, where I had sold action, didn't have all of myself.

[1944] Uh, yeah, I've lost, I guess my biggest losing couple of days was on the order of 50 million Hong Kong.

[1945] Hong Kong dollars, Hong Kong dollars, which are bigger.

[1946] or less rather so only like six million u .S. Oh my god son only six million US dollars and personally I had a small share of that so I didn't personally lose six million dollars what's a small share a million two million what's a small share 10 %ish oh okay 600 grand still that's a lot of fucking money yeah it's doesn't feel good and then of course a bunch of my friends lost a shitload of money, too, and I have to send out the email, hey, guys, didn't go real well.

[1947] Fuck.

[1948] That's the worst part of it for sure, is the, hey, guys, didn't go real well email.

[1949] I'm sure, because everybody's, like, planning on making a, like, a profit based on your success in the past.

[1950] Yeah.

[1951] So it's rare that you hit these dark spots.

[1952] What do you attribute them to?

[1953] Is it just luck?

[1954] Is it, is it?

[1955] I mean, it's not that rare.

[1956] Like, any given day that I play poker.

[1957] I might be, if I'm playing cash games, maybe like a 52 % favorite to have a winning day, maybe less than that.

[1958] If I'm playing a tournament, I'm a favorite to have a losing day because a tournament, they pay about 10 % top 10 % of the field.

[1959] So if they're paying top 10 % of the field, a really good player, cash is 15, 18 % of the time.

[1960] That seems incredibly stressful.

[1961] It's pretty stressful.

[1962] How do you feel?

[1963] like about this like as a as a human being trying to make a living and this incredibly it feels like you're navigating a minefield like um yeah it you've been obviously you've been very successful with this yeah you've turned a very nice profit you do very well yeah but the amount of stress that on your 28 year old body but not just your back but your mind like racing and battling these numbers you know you're talking millions of dollars back and forth and down and up and what is that do you do something to mitigate that do you I like to meditate every day what kind of meditation uh just breath focused um basically just sit quietly for anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes and attend to my breathing just concentrating of breathing in and breathing out just trying to stay calm and uh sometimes I'll do an exercise on top of that where I'll track the thoughts that enter my mind and label them as thoughts about the future or thoughts about the past.

[1964] And what that exercise does is helps you, helps to bring you into the present moment.

[1965] And to see that it's difficult to have thoughts about the present moment.

[1966] You just have sensations and feelings and experiences of the present moment.

[1967] And the thoughts that you build on top of that are almost all about the future or about the past.

[1968] And observing that process is really good for bringing you into the present moment.

[1969] Hmm.

[1970] And that's great for poker because all the shit that stresses you out when you're playing and dealing with these big swings is thinking about the past and thinking about the future, thinking I'm down this much in the last couple of days.

[1971] That's real fucking bad.

[1972] What am I going to do?

[1973] Or I'm going to win all this money.

[1974] And then I'm going to buy a fucking yacht and sail off into the sunset.

[1975] And both of those are things you can think that take you out of the moment of, all right, he just bet.

[1976] What do I think he has?

[1977] What's the right play?

[1978] So in that sense, poker is a lot like life.

[1979] Like, that's the key to life is to be present.

[1980] It's great training for living your life, mindfully and rationally and effectively.

[1981] Have you ever done any treatments or sessions in the isolation?

[1982] tank?

[1983] I haven't.

[1984] I really want to.

[1985] Why don't you get one?

[1986] You're making banks, son?

[1987] Yeah, but I'm traveling around all the time.

[1988] Ship one of them.

[1989] I don't know how to get something shipped to Malta.

[1990] I can't fucking figure how to get them to send me a desk chair in Malta.

[1991] I guarantee you somewhere in Europe, they have sensory deprivation tanks.

[1992] They have a couple in Malta.

[1993] I looked it up.

[1994] I do.

[1995] I didn't get around to go into one.

[1996] But it's an hour across the whole island.

[1997] Yeah, no, it's right fucking there.

[1998] I'm just kind of lazy.

[1999] Jesus Christ.

[2000] If you do it once, you're going to realize what an amazing tool it is.

[2001] You're going to want to do it all the time.

[2002] I came really close to doing it once with JC in L .A. several years ago.

[2003] We got in the cab and we went to the place and we got there and it was closed.

[2004] Well, there's a place that's in Venice while you're here, the float lab.

[2005] I'm pretty sure that's where I tried to go.

[2006] I mean, JC took me there.

[2007] Oh, it's amazing.

[2008] They're the best place too.

[2009] The best place in California for sure.

[2010] I should check that up for sure.

[2011] Yeah.

[2012] Well, I'll try to see if I could hook it up when you get out of here.

[2013] Cool.

[2014] But we're out of time, man. We're going to turn into a pumpkin.

[2015] Oh, all right.

[2016] We're three hours in.

[2017] That was three hours.

[2018] Isn't that credible?

[2019] That flew by.

[2020] Yeah.

[2021] Follow Ike on Twitter.

[2022] It's Ike poker.

[2023] I -K -E -Poker on Twitter.

[2024] Anything else?

[2025] PokerStars .net, your sponsor.

[2026] Real quick, I want to plug my dad's book.

[2027] My father, Brooks Haxton, is a writer and just published a book called Fading Hearts on the River.

[2028] That's sort of a family memoir that tracks my poker career and all the other interesting shit that's gone on in the Haxton clan over the last several generations.

[2029] It's a great read, like cool family stories and also interesting meditations on game playing and the means.

[2030] meaning of games and how they function in our lives.

[2031] Excellent.

[2032] And what's it called again?

[2033] One more time?

[2034] Fating Hearts on the River.

[2035] I'm pretty sure you can get it on Audible.

[2036] I think there's an audiobook version as well.

[2037] Glorious.

[2038] And that brings us to our sponsors.

[2039] Audible.

[2040] Audible .com.

[2041] Thank you to Audible.

[2042] Go to audible .com forward slash Joe.

[2043] Get a free audiobook and up to 30 free days of Audible service.

[2044] And if you want to get Aik's Dad's book, it is...

[2045] Fating Hearts on the River by Brooks Haxton.

[2046] Write it down, bitches.

[2047] I know your memory sucks.

[2048] thanks also to ting go to rogan .ting .com and save $25 off of any of their brand new Android devices or the Apple iPhones as well thanks also to on it .com go to on and i .t use the code word rogan and save 10 % off any and all supplements that's it for this week you dirty fucks we'll be back next week until then much love we'll see you Friday night at the san jose performing center for the perform go to my website jo rogan .net the details are there.

[2049] I don't remember shit.

[2050] Much love.

[2051] See ya.

[2052] Big kiss.