May 8, 2025 • 43 mins
Nate and Maria interview former professional poker player Vanessa Selbst—the only woman ever to reach the number one ranking on the Global Poker Index. They discuss her experiences playing poker and her move into the world of finance (she now works for Jane Street Capital). They also discuss why, at her first job in finance, she kept a giant bag of pennies underneath her desk.
For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:
The Leap from Maria Konnikova
Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver
Get ad-free episodes, and get your questions answered in an exclusive weekly bonus episode, of Risky Business by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows.
Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin
Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey everyone, Maria here with an exciting opportunity for
any of our listeners who are also new poker players.
Nate and I are looking for a beginning player who
is heading to this year's World Series of Poker. We
might want to talk with you before the tournament, hear
(00:36):
your story, maybe even offer you some advice. Reach out
to Risky Business at Pushkin dot FM if you're interested.
No guarantees, but here comes our first piece of advice.
It's plus ev to send that email. Welcome back to
(01:00):
Risky Business, a show about making better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And I'm Nate Selver.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Today on the show, we have a very special guest,
Vanessa Celtst. Vanessa and I first met when we were
both Poker Stars Team pros. I was just starting out
playing poker and Vanessa was just getting the hell out
of there. And Vanessa remains one of the most impressive
people I have ever met in or out of poker.
(01:29):
Yale undergrad Yale Law School, only female poker player ever
to have reached number one on the GPI that's Global
Poker Index rankings overall. So both men and women like
just number one, period, but only female to have ever
done that, over eleven million in earnings, three World Series
(01:51):
of Poker bracelets, and then left it all behind, left
that glamorous life behind to join Bridgewater Associates and go
into the Hedge fun world, after which she went to
Jane Street Capital, which is where we find her today.
Welcome to the show, Vanessa.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Thanks Maria, thank you for that intros. Definitely more than
I deserve, but I appreciate nonetheless.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And Nate, how long have you known Vanessa?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I think I knew her kind of about the time,
maybe when she quit, maybe I reached out and I'm like, oh,
you know, if you've kind of left poke for other things,
I know, since it was stupid cold email, I think,
and we wound up becoming friends and we have a
lot in common, and so I'm a huge admirer of
Vanessa as well.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That's not right at all, Nate. We met at a
really awkward well, my wife was joking, was like a
really awkward date. You don't remember this? And a Aussie
millions and.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Like, oh millions, Okay, when are we.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Twelve or twenty fourteen? I don't even know what year
it was, but like I don't know the people at
Astie Millions were like, Nate Silver wants to meet you.
I was like, oh, I want to meet him. And
then we went on like like at dinner, but it
was just like super awkward and funny, but like it
was a good time.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I suppressed it.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And then that was when we first hung out, but
then we didn't really start hanging out till a few
years later, so I just didn't know. That was a
very special one of my awkwardest states that I've ever had,
so I guess it was more meaningfully awkward to me,
but that's okay, it was it was a good time.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So I actually I remember the first time I met
you was in Monte Carlo. It was my first ever
Poker Stars stop and it was my first ever major,
kind of major tournament period. I knew, you know, I
had known nothing about poker and kind of there I was,
and Eric Sidell introduced us. Eric Sidell, obviously you know
(03:45):
who he is, and listeners of the show, no, he is,
you know, one of the greatest players of all time
became my coach and he was like, I want you
to meet Vanessa Selts. She's really really impressive, and I
was like, I don't want to meet Vanessa. She's scarce me.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And then and then we met and at first I
was like, I don't think she likes me, and Eric's like, no, no,
she likes you. And then we became friends and I
realized that you were actually pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Well thanks, yeah, it was great, great to me beginning
of a great friendship. You know, it is funny that
you say that, because there is this thing where there's
less like you know, not to get to like whatever
serious about kind of a lighthearted anecdote, and it's like,
there really is this thing where you're on TV and
you're or you're just playing poker in general, not even
on TV, where you know, you're like you have your
(04:33):
game face, you're like in the zone. And I get
really intense when I'm playing, and I'm like really concentrating,
and I'm also often like playing pretty aggressive. So there's
this like weird like crossover between your poker style and
your personality, right, and so I can come across it's
like really intense, and I get really intense sometimes, like
I'm really in the moment, and I think sometimes it
would just be like really intense and people will be like,
(04:55):
oh my god, who is this person?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
But you're you're very self I mean, you're very self possessed.
And I never want to make assumptions about someone's inner
confidence level versus how they project outwardly. But did you
feel like it was an advance just to be on TV?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Oh? Like, was it an advantage that I got to
be on TV playing poker? Like? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Do you feel I guess do you feel like you
played better on TV relative or you know, maybe everyone
plays worse because there's more external factors to deal with.
But did you like if you are told I'm at
whatever day of the World Series main event, right you're
at the future table? Is are you happy about that
or not? Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Man, that's a complicated question. That's a good questions, complicated
question because I didn't actually like the act of like
being on TV, if you will, just like, I definitely
had advantage over my competitors at a random World Series
tournament where I've been on that stage a million times
and they haven't, and I'm gonna make better decisions and stuff.
But I just didn't like it on like a visceral level.
(05:58):
But being on TV was actually a huge advantage for me,
I kind of like utilized that. Basically, what I mean
to say is like I got a reputation the first
time I was ever on TV. I made this like
really crazy bluff. I four bet all in with with
two five suited. It was a thing that happens now
occasionally is still considered a reckless play, but at the
time it was two thousand and six and no one
(06:18):
had ever seen anyone do that or like had any idea,
you know what I mean. You re raised with like
pocket aces, maybe as king if you were feeling like bluffy,
you know at the time. And so when that happened,
I got this reputation as being like the craziest person
in the world, you know, in poker.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And by the way, you managed to run into aces
in that hand.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I did manage to run to aces, And I don't
know if that was a coincidence. Having just explained that
most people that three bet usually had aces, so the
point just being like it was this crazy play, and
everybody kind of took notice, you know, They're like, I
don't look like your typical poker player. I wasn't playing
like your typical poker butler like, who is this person?
And I think that stuck out in people's mind so
(06:56):
much that I just instantly got this reputation for being
this like crazy, crazy player, to the point where I
would play games and I, you know, I would end
up in like one thousand big blind pots meaning for
the average view were meaning pods that were like way
bigger than your average pot, like just a giant, giant,
giant pot, and I would like go all in on
(07:16):
the river, and I would get called by like Ace High,
and You're just like, how do I end up in
a situation where there's like a thousand big blinds in
the middle and I'm being called by Ace High? And
so anyway to get back to the original point of
what I was saying, like I was just as crazy
player and I was never gonna shake that image. And
so it's honestly part of what led me to retire
from poker because it was pretty boring. I like really
just couldn't bluff nearly as much as your average person.
(07:38):
Like every story was like, so I knew they had
third pair, so I just gave up, or like you know,
or I decided I was either gonna put in you know,
my entire stack or give up. And so what I
ended up doing was realizing I was like, okay, I
literally I get the most action of any player ever,
so I just have to play tight. This is the
most profitable strategy by far. So whenever I went on TV,
(08:02):
if there was ever a close decision between like making
aggressive action like bluff or rays or just like folder call,
I always took the aggress action. And sometimes even when
it wasn't a close decision, you know, like when I,
you know, five bet shove with Jackson and suit whatever.
But I wasn't trying to light money on fire. But
it was this really weird real thing where it was
like I would give up a little bit of equity
or a lot of equity sometimes to just kind of
(08:23):
maintain this crazy image because you know, and I can
say this now because I don't play poker anymore, but
it was like a decade of me just like playing
I would say, I mean postlop I was pretty aggressive,
but like preflop I was probably tighter than like ninety
percent of the table honestly, because I couldn't never shake
that image anyway. So I was just like, let me
use these like TV time as a way to kind
(08:45):
of keep up my reputation, and people just believe what
they see on TV, and that was just the most
profitable way to play.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, So I think you're raising a really interesting point,
which is that you know, when you're talking about you know,
we we love poker on this show, not just because
we all play poker, but because it's such a great
way of looking at decision making. And I think you
you're raising a really important point, which is that no
decision is made in a vacuum.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I have a very different reputation from yours, but you know,
I've been a bounty in big events and I hate
it because you can't bluff. Right, It's kind of the
same thing.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
We're just funny thing. We're like, we'll talk up. So
you've said, I think a couple of times, Maria, we're like, okay,
when you make a big shove or a big bet
on the river and an opponent tanks, and if you're
not a poker fan, that means they're waiting, you know,
at least half a minute to several minutes to make
a decision.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
In my experience, when they tank against me, they fold
two thirds of the time. Right, And you said it's
the opposite for me, they.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Call right for me. The longer they tank, the more
I'm like, okay, motherfucker, just call already, right, like, you know,
just stop, take me out of my misery hand. And
it is, you know, it is so incredibly you know,
there's I think that's one of the interesting things about poker.
And I'm curious, you know, how how you see it
both in poker and outside of poker, kind of that
added layer to it, right that there is it's not
(10:04):
just the math, right, that every single risk assessment, every
single decision is so dependent on the player, on the situation,
on the dynamics, on all of those things. The math
is there, right, the math matters, but but there's so
much more going on.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
One hundred percent. And I think your point about like
the longer it takes that being the key point of
divergence is like a really a really great perception because
I think that is like we have all these kind
of emotional biases and you know, like if you usually
your brain is kind of leading the charge for the
first like beginning of your decision making, right, and then
(10:41):
eventually it's like the emotional the monkey brain or whatever
it takes over. And that's what I used to say
about you know, to go back to that story about
how people would call me with these crazy, crazy hands,
and it's like there were hands where the only way
to correct call if I'm like bluffing with a part
of my rain, like we're spots, you're supposed to bluff
like fifteen percent, they would have to have assumed I
(11:02):
was bluffing like eighty percent to make the call. And
it's like, Okay, you see a person who's had like
very good poker results. Could I be like the one
point zho one percent luckiest person and just a terrible
poker player. I guess it's possible, athough, like from a
Baysian perspective, like probably, like if the other priors that like,
you're wrong about my range, like probably that should be
(11:24):
a stronger prior, but like hey, never mind. So you know,
people would make these calls where I'm like, Okay, the
only way that this call could be correct is if
I'm just a terrible player and getting lucky all the time.
Like there's no way that I could be a successful
player and be bluffing the frequency that it needs to be.
But it didn't matter, Like it was just like I've
seen you on TV I call you know what I mean,
or like, I'm not gonna be bluffed by you. I'm
(11:46):
not gonna be bullied by you. And it was truly
incredible because if you really just thought about it from
a from a logical decision making like rational perspective, it
would just be an absurd way to play against anyone.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So I'm curious. So you think when people take longer
to make a decision that they get more emotional because
people would say, well, I'm going through all the all
the different combinations and thinking through things carefully. You think
that like actually kind of like.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I think mostly there, yeah, a few people are thinking
through the combinations.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But even if you're thinking through the combinations, I think, like,
even in a really complicated way, it takes you like
max thirty seconds to get like ninety percent of the
way there. Like, I just think that time is allowing
so much more emotional stuff to creep in that it's
just like the ratio of like math to emotion is
just like definitely going down over time.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Totally agree if you so, you were kind of playing
in the era before solvers became quite so ubiquitous.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
If I don't think they existed at the beginning when
I've literally.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Never used a solver before.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So and a solver, if you're not aware at home,
is a product that literally solves the Nash equilibrium for a.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Poker literally since it doesn't actually exist. But yes, wait,
what do you.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Mean, Well, there's a because you a nashqlibrium Truther.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
No, but because poker is an unsolved game, it approximates
a solution.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
But it's true to break down, it's true. Well wow, sorry,
that is true technically. Actually, you know, I feel like
when you need that means literally Truther.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So yeah, yeah, would you how would you play differently today?
Do you think you'd try to be more quote unquote
gto driven or even or less so or this or
the same?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
That's that's a great question. And so my goal is
just to make the most money, right, it's not to
like play in a way that makes Jane Street look
more like a reasonable place and not make crazy bluffs. Right.
So okay, just under that premise, I would say, I think,
I mean, so in my career, I'm a trader, like
poker player, trader or whatever. It is, Like you think
(13:49):
about where does your edge come from? And uh, it's
certainly for me not in playing GTO better than anybody
else at this point, Like I've literally never used to solver.
I've never studied it. I'm also very unpracticed from the game,
and so I don't even remember like what the lines
I'm supposed to take in various spots are. Like I
used to come close enough to what the solvers would
(14:10):
say if I had used them. It was actually like
pretty cool. I would ask my friends, and I'd be like,
I kind of got there, you know, just from understanding
the theoretical underpinnings of the game. And I'm pretty far
from that because I really play maybe once or twice
a year at this point for the last almost decades,
so you know, I don't have to play less GGO.
My strategy back then was to put people, you know,
(14:31):
people that were trying to play GTO that I thought
were just kind of like memorizing, and like there was
this there's this class of poker players that was like
successful because they were good at memorizing things and not
not that great at thinking through things. And so I
was like, Okay, let me sacrifice a little bit of
EV on an early part of the hand in order
to get them into a spot they're very unused to,
(14:51):
uncomfortable with, and just outreason them in a spot where
the pot is much bigger. And I would just do
that repeatedly, and kind of through doing that, I would,
you know, kind of figure out where the population where
most players were making the most mistakes and you know,
and so I think I would just do that, but
even more because I think my edge there is probably
(15:12):
still similar to what it is now. You know, it
would take me a while. I probably wouldn't be winning
at first doing that, because I think part of the
reason that was such a successful strategy for me was
like I would just see the same thing over and over.
I would be like, you know, I don't know, not
to make it too pokery, but I'd be like, oh,
I check the turn in a spot that no one
would and then I would like raise small and then
(15:32):
you know whatever, like some weird line that no one takes,
but I would take it a lot, And so I
would see how people would react over and over again.
But I think, like whenever you're making any decision, and
I think this applies to trading way even more than poker,
it's just like thinking through really really carefully like where
does your edge come from? Where does my edge not
come from? Where am I getting outplayed? And so that
(15:53):
would have to be the answers.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
No, I would much rather play against like a gto
perfect player than like Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I think it's such a smart strategy, both in poke
around in life to put people in parts of the
game tree where they're not as familiar, right, get them
out of their comfort zone. And I've been on the
receiving end of that when I was just starting out.
There are some people who are very exploited of players.
I still remember a hand I played against someone you
know of Vanessa Joe Chong, and he defended the blinds.
(16:24):
I was a pre flap raiser. He checked, I bet
and then he led the turn and I was already
planning to bet that turn. I was a perfect barrel
cart and he led it. I was like, what the hell,
what are you doing? And it really I messed up.
I ended up busting the tournament on that hand.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And he's probably done that a bunch of times. But
now he kind of understands how people in their first
time reacting to that react and you know, the mistakes
wind up being way bigger. Yeah, he's making a conscious decision.
You know. It's really interesting. One thing I have heard
that Once again, I don't know anything about this, so
if I might be speaking on my ass but I
think you can do things like node lock. So if
(17:04):
you make some assumptions about, you know, the way a
player will react in a certain spot, you can like
you know, that's different than GTO. I think you can
no luck and then you can like kind of go
back and say, okay, like conditional on them reacting a
certain way, what is my gto play? And like that's
what GGO is about. It's not or that's what like
just I guess solid strategy and anything is about. It's
(17:24):
not like supposed to be this rigid thing. It's supposed
to be a way to say, okay, conditional on these
assumptions I'm making about the world, what is the best
course of action. The problem is that gdo pure GTO.
The assumption that it's relying on is that everybody else
is going to play perfectly. And then if you condition
on different assumptions, it's going to tell you like different things.
(17:45):
And so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
And we'll be back right after this. You have a
unique background for people who went into the world of poker,
And I mean, I think something that unites a lot
(18:11):
of what you've done is kind of the competitive edge
to it, the love of games. But you went to
undergrad you studied political science, right, and then you played
poker after that. But then even though you were ridiculously successful,
you didn't go pro. You went to law school and
only then after law school did you go into professional poker.
(18:32):
Can you talk us through that and how kind of
how that thinking went and kind of what the strand,
whether the strand that I have picked out, kind of
the competition and kind of the game aspect of it
is correct or not? You know, how did that all
work out?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It's not that deep. For me. It was mostly me
trying to convince myself I'm not a degenerate, when in
fact I am a degenerate. So yeah, that was I mean, honestly,
it was a lot of like, oh, this isn't actually
what I'm doing for a career, right, Like that's not
a real career, and so it was much more like
a hobby. And honestly it kind of always was a
(19:09):
hot be for me.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
When did you start playing?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
And like, well, I mean I started playing in high school,
like when we watched Rounders. Oh wow, my friends and
I love to play. Yeah, old school, and so yeah,
my friends and I used to play in like the
lunch room. But but I started getting more serious at Yale.
There was a like a game where like a bunch
of people were like getting pretty serious about the game.
And I discovered two plus two and I started going
(19:33):
to Foxwits every week, and you know, so the story goes,
and then so I played for a few years and
it was okay, But then I don't know, I just
like thought, I don't know, you know, like you're from
like an upper middle class Jewish background. You're like, you know,
you're taught like education, blah blah blah, Like I'd done
well in school. I thought that was kind of just
like the path. I thought this was just kind of
like a fun sidetrack thing for me. And so yeah,
(19:58):
I took all my money offline when I went to
law school, and I was like, I'm not not doing this.
I'm not going to like fall into playing pograming nor
my studies. This is like a great opportunity. That's what
I always wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
And you'd always wanted to be a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, yeah, I thought I did. I mean that, you know,
there's like, you know, you don't know what careers actually
are available to when you're younger, but.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
It's kind of done that they make you pick when
you're young.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I know. But uh yeah, so I had no idea.
So so I thought I wanted to be a lawyer,
and I just ended up falling back into poker because
I just ran like hotter than the sun in law school.
Like there were these four tournaments that I played like two.
There was one tournament Fox that it was in one
tournament Mohigan both years, and I played some like it
(20:41):
was like you know, a three K, a three K.
There was a main event or some and I just
like one three of them and got third in the
other one. It was, Yeah, it was really dumb. It was.
I mean, part of it was probably like I was
not being in my own head anymore about like I
was still not far enough from move poker that I
was still pretty good at it. Everybody else was terrible
at that time, and and I was just like feeling it,
(21:02):
you know what I mean. I didn't care. I was
just playing my game and stuff. So obviously I was
also running hotter than the sun, and so I kind
of just fell back into it. Point.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Have you seen twenty one, which is a movie adaptation
of Bring Down the House? Right? Yeah, they like fly
back from like Vegas with like tens of thousands of
dollars in their pockets, right, and they have to like
go to their fucking like Monday morning classes. Where you
feel like I am cooler and or smarter than these people.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean not cooler or smarter. That
definitely was smarter, was definitely not up there, but it
was like definitely like honestly I would better, you know
what I mean. I felt like on top of the
world for sure. It was always really fun.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
So how long were you kind of doing the whole
poker tournament live world travel scene and like just because
like not many people do that, right, And Yeah, I'm
interested in you because you're not somebody I think if
you you know, you have a lot of attitude, peness
at a lot of a lot of things. Yeah, so
you might not always find your way into this, But like,
what's it like for someone like you, young, openly gay,
(21:58):
very bright, has you know, is interested in politics in
the world. What's it like kind of being on the
poker scene for a few years, the kind of grindiness
of it or the glamour of it.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, honestly, I like never really felt like a poker pro.
And I know that's weird to say. To answer your question,
I played. I would say it was like close as
close to full time as I ever was from twenty
eleven to twenty seventeen. So that was kind of like
the main part of my poker career when I was
mostly not doing other things, although I still dabbled, dabbled
(22:31):
in law because I think I was still always trying
to convince myself that I wasn't really a poker player
or something. But yeah, because honestly, it was hard. It
was like I think it can be really fun, you know,
you you know like it it's you know, you're playing poker.
It's the ultimate lifestyle. You're seeing the world. I mean,
I don't want to downplay like it was. It was
(22:51):
really great and it was really fun. You're you're seeing
the world, you know, traveling from country to country or whatever.
You get to play a game pretty much all day
every day if you want to. If you wake up
and you don't feel like going to work. You don't
go to work like you you know, you were in
ultimate control of everything, and at the end of the day,
it's really fun. You're meeting really interesting people from all
(23:11):
over the world. I did find it hard, I guess,
to kind of stay informed and stay kind of doing
things that felt like meaningful. I think a lot of
foker players struggle with that, like finding meaning, Like when
you're just playing a card game all the time, it's like,
kind of what is the point of this? You know?
When I was doing law, my goal was to be
a civil rights attorney, but I just, you know, my
(23:34):
brain is built in a certain way, and I tried
being a lawyer, but it was horribly inefficient and just
like I just couldn't do it, Like it just felt
really slow and not like fun. And I think poker
and trading is the thing that like gets me really
excited in terms of the strategy, Like you're constantly making
strategic decisions like every second of the day. So for me,
it was just sort of like an evolution of my
(23:56):
understanding of self that I that I knew this is
what like made me happy, and then what do I
have to do to make meaning for myself in the world,
and so being in the poker world, it was just
like hard to kind of be more well rounded, like
have interest into in places. It was like, you know,
when you're traveling, there's this weird disoriented thing of like
being your physical environment kind of dictates like what you're
(24:16):
thinking about or what you're focusing on. And so for me,
it's like, now I have a boring routine. I have kids,
I wake up, I like have my boring commute, I
like go to the office, you know what I mean,
Like I just kind of like understand what life is.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
If you have a big trade on, do you enjoy
the sweat of that?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
What he's asking is, are you still a djen Vanessa?
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Am I still a dgen? Yeah? No, for sure, I'm
still a DGEN, much more so than anybody else. I'm like,
for sure, I like to, you know, sweat the outcome
of trades and stuff. But you're you know, but but
much less than poker than I you know, it's not
like the most DGEN exciting stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Okay, so you're playing poker, I can imagine a very
very particular skills set. I don't know if I want
to stereotype people I can imagine a very particular type
person has like poor social skills and it's very undisciplined,
right for whom like poker is a maximizing amount of money,
but for for ninety seven percent of good players, then
(25:11):
you can probably make more money doing something else if
you still want it to be a DJ, and then
you can go work for Hedge fund or something.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
But like, I mean, when you shots fired, how.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Did you get into this industry?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
That?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Because I mean you you you quit and literally the
New York Times write about you. That's pretty cool. Yeah,
did you find Bridgewater or they found you or or
you found them through friends or have this relationship come about?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah? It was just Galen, like Galen Hall, another really
successful poker player. Like I didn't know anything about finance.
I kind of thought of it as like, you know,
the Wolf of Wall Street kind of situation. You know.
So Galen was working at Bridgewater and he was like, oh, yeah,
this place like they'll hire you. They have a really
good kind of like education program. And so I was
(25:55):
just thrilled that, you know, I had heard about finance
and like kind of how it was similar to poker.
And my mom actually had been an options trader when
an avid poker player.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
What year was that?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
How did that happen?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah? She played poker, uh like basically to put herself
through college, which I guess was in like seventy three
or seventy two, and then was an option trader like
in the nineties. Yeah, on the American stock. It's pretty crazy.
The only woman I think.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I was gonna say there might must not have been
married many.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It was basically just her and so so I'd heard
about it, but I but I didn't know much about it,
and so Galen was like, yeah, they'll they'll teach you
and whatever. So I was just told someone was like
willing to give me a job. But yeah, ultimately it wasn't.
It wasn't like the right fit. And they're like kind
of more they do like kind of like long term
investment strategy stuff, and so it felt more like a
(26:51):
think tank. Like I would try to get people to
gamble with me on stuff and they were just like no,
And I'm like, what, like what you know, don't we
work at a Like I would finally get people to
gamble with me, they'd owe me like, you know, seven
dollars and sixty cents because like that's what they were
comfortable gambling for. And they were like or like whatever,
and they're like, okay, can you pay me? And I'm
like yeah, like let's just flip until it's like one
hundred or zero and you actually liked this story. Literally,
(27:12):
I would have debts of like thirteen dollars that I
would have to pay, and so I'd be like, okay,
let's just flia, like lets of roll one hundred sid
to die and you know, I'll take thirteen number or
you can take thirteen numbers and you know, if you
get one of them, I'll give you a hundred bucks.
And they're like no, I'm just like they're like, I
don't campl like I can't deal with this. So what
I I went to the bank and I got a
(27:34):
lot of rolls of pennies and some nickels, and I
unrolled them all a lot of them, like a hundred
rolls of pennies and like one hundred rolls of nickels,
and I put them in a bag under my desk.
And anytime someone wanted me to pay them a debt
and a number that wasn't a round number, I used
to just sort through my bag of pennies and nickels
and pay the debt that way.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
That is the best.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah, And when when I left, actually my old coworkers
met up at some point like a few months later,
and they were like, oh, we found this bag of
pennies under your desk? Did you want them? Like? No, no, no,
it's you.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Worked with a bunch of nets, Vanessa, is what you're
trying to.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I was like, literally, do you guys remember that this?
But anyway, so it wasn't it wasn't the same kind
of fit. But luckily that's where I heard about Jane Street,
which is a much better fit.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
So do you feel like poker has kind of enabled
you to excel in that kind of environment? Was it
transferable or were both of these things that you kind
of carried with you both to poker and now to
Bridgewater and then and then Jane Street? Like is it
is it what you're bringing to it or did it?
Did it impart knowledge that you're now using as well?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Oh? I mean like of course, Like it's a completely
different sphere, Like there was a ton to learn, there's
still a ton to learn, like learning all the time.
It's it's like such a complicated, complex like world, but poker.
I mean, I didn't realize just how much it mattered,
like how much, whether it just poker or just general
strategic thinking. Like I think the way that poker players
(29:06):
think is the way that traders think, just thinking about
things and expected values, but also just like thinking about
the different players in a game and your motivations, because
if you're trading, someone else is on the other side
of the trade, and particularly I trade options and options
are like really complex things where there's like a lot
of different kinds of risk and different like kind of
(29:27):
distributions of returns and whatever, and so you really have
to think through like the different possible situations, the probabilities
of them, what's someone's motivation, the whole concept of average selection.
Who am I trading against? What is their motivation? It
really does feel like being in a poker game, and
and there's a reason, like a lot of you know,
there's a lot of poker players at the firm that
are anywhere from casual poker players where there's always poker
(29:48):
games going. We have poker tables in our like main cafeteria,
and so there's always a poker game after work and
then you know, even at the World Series, a couple
of the guys always go out and one of them
actually I think got like second or third, I don't
actually remember, and one of the one of the events
last year. So there's like some serious poker players here
and it's not you know, it's not a coincidence. Like
(30:09):
there's huge amount of like crossover skills.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Do you find it hard to play against coworkers because
of like the office politics dimension of it?
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Uh no, no, only office politics.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And I love how you said that.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Competition. No, no, no, it's like it's actually like amazing
because I think Jane Street is really good at this.
If like it's it's really competitive in the sense of
like everybody comes from a place of like being having
really competitive background. Like a lot of a lot of
the people that get hired are people that have a
history of playing games or math competitions or or whatever.
(30:45):
It is, like you know a lot of people with
like really competitive personalities. But Jane Street is a place
that is very collaborative, like out of all of the
different you know, training firms or whatever, like just for
a lot of reasons, like it's just like a very
collaborative like congenial place. So it's sort of like a
great mix where we're like super competitive with each other
(31:07):
at the poker table, but just in like a fun
you know, a place where people just really appreciate when
someone like outplays someone else and just like oh yeah, props,
like that was awesome. Like everyone just wants to outplay
each other, you know, and and play really well, and
like that's that's the joy of it is is just
like finding the best play and figuring it out, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Is that a gp I award that I spy over
your shoulders?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Pokers? It's a bookend. It's a bookend.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, but it is a GPI. It as a book
and you're using it. But but don't don't skirt the question.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You don't know about prize. It's a bookend.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
It's someone important. I guess it is. Yeah, Actually, I
just know you'll like this too. I just finally cleaned
out my garage after four years. Uh. We am renovating
the basement. And we moved here four years ago and
in Montclair, New Jersey, and we realized that I hadn't
really unpacked. So I finally found all of my old trophies.
(32:19):
This is now sitting in my office. It's my old
oh bartous poker turn. This is the best biggest tournament
I ever won. It's covered in hay.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
This is okay, you can.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Find some hey here you go. There's like a whole
bunch of hay everywhere. I don't know if you can see. Yeah,
because my wife decided that it was a good idea
to purchase lots of different bales of hay and keep
them also in our garage. So now all of because
I don't know, you have to decorate for fall. I
don't know, there's like a lapse. She's very into decorating,
and there's apparently a lapse between Halloween and Christmas that
involves lots of barrels of hay. But anyway, all of
(32:52):
my old trophies are now covered in hay and have
like lots of cracks. So I got to figure out
what to do with them, maybe like some kind of
we My kids were trying to use them as weapons.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So Partush was the biggest tournament you ever won, Yeah,
and the biggest trophy. It's amazing, Vanessa, were you at
the par two with the cheating scandal or was that
not your year?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Oh? Yeah, that was that was my year. Yeah, that's
a good, great memory that you remember that.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Well, I'm I'm writing a book about cheating right now,
so oh awesome. So for people who aren't familiar since
you were there, do you this is a great story
and involved journalism or faux journalism and a lot of things. So, Nest,
do you want to tell us a little bit about
your part tuwish victory and this crazy moment?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah? So well, from my perspective, I was a triplayer
going into the final table and it was the delayed
final table, which was crazy. So we finished the tournament
in September and played down to the final table and
then played the final table in November, so we had
like two months to stew on it. So I'm having
like literal nightmares that I'm like chip leader my equity.
It was the biggest turnam I ever played. First prize
was almost two million, you know, and and I was
(33:57):
having nightmares that I would like bust out ninth. So
when I get there and they're like, oh, congratulations, everyone's
got at least eighth, I was like, okay, cool, I'm
going to win this now, you know, like basically all
of my nightmares were no more. But but yeah, so
when I got there, there like yeah, you're all guaranteed
eighth for like what they're like, Oh yeah. One of
the guys was just like cheating the whole time, throughout
the whole tournament and also on the whole poker tour. Yeah,
(34:17):
he had these like like journalists I guess with this
like fake website that had nothing on it. I think
it was like I don't remember the name of the site,
but he would just have like fake journalists stand behind
people and like fake report and then just like give
signs to this guy Ali what was his name.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
His name was Ali Tecantum.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Guk tech and Togak. There you go.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah, it's pretty good fucking cheat.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah. So he would just give him signals on like
what they had, and he was just like looking over
at peaper soldiers. It was so old school. There's no devices,
there's no like, you know, poker's gotten a lot more sophisticated,
like we've gotten poker cheating solvers now. I feel like,
you know that are just uh, they're like that's not
the gto way to cheat, Like the GTO way to
cheat with this strategy would have at least involved having
legitimate poker blog that had some words on it. But
(35:02):
but yeah, so he was finally discovered.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
So you can't trust you can't trust journalists. See.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Well it was one of those things where when I
heard that story, I was like, oh wow, like you
really need to learn how to protect your cards, Like, yeah,
just you know, it's crazy that cheating. I mean, cheating
has always been a part of whenever there's money. Even
when there's no money, there's there's cheating. People cheat on
trivia nights. But yeah, I just remember that he had
(35:27):
the fake journalists who would look at people's cards and
just hand signs, completely old school, and you think about.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
All this, like the press hats and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Probably they had, yeah, all of these things.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
It went on for like a year and a half
something crazy like it was. But like the number of
cheating scales that you've read about and been like, wow,
if you were just a little less greedy, you could
have gotten away with this forever.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Absolutely no, I mean I think that's the case with
most of them, whether or not it's poker, that if
you just cheated a little bit smarter and you know,
got out a little bit faster, we would not know
about it. And some of the biggest cheating stories in
poker they did get out, and so.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Oh my god, you have to get a nice user for.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Your people's reputation that is more or less intact.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Really, are you gonna uncover some of this in your book?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I will have to have some alleged lies in there.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I will.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I will tell you that one of the people is
no longer alive, so you could probably put two and
two together.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
But yeah, that's my favorite guy.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Mahi have been from the Southern United States.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, Nate's accents, Nate's accent. So are you now, you know,
now that you're kind of settled down, do you how
do you feel about poker? I'm actually just curious. You know,
we obviously know it's a big part of your life
because you have your GPI award in your zoom background
(36:51):
and you've got your No you're not, You've got your partner.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
I mean, I've got that World Series Poker carpeting.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I think, where are your bracelets? Vanessa? But I mean
it is, it is, Actually, it is remarkable that and
you know, there's a numbers game. A lot of things
have changed in the game since you've left, but a
lot of things haven't. This year was a record low
number of women in the WSP main event for like,
you know, it just it went, it went down.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And realize that it was. It's just like low enough
that it's.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Just yeah, it was just yeah exactly in terms of
like the last you know, when people have been tracking this,
there's still So when I won my first bracelet this year,
I was, I think.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Woman, I don't know, you want to bracelet what?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So I was woman number like twenty nine. I think
it was. I don't remember. It was under thirty women
who've won open bracelet events since the beginning?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
What did you win? I really don't follow poker all,
but congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
It was that was eighty eight crazy eights.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
So that that was fun. But it was a you know,
women's are still not really winning open events, like so
if you don't count the women's events, then you don't
count seen.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's still under thirty. Like I said, I
think I was number twenty nine.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I don't. Actually I feel embarrassed to be in the
presence of two bracelet winners.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I am, I fucking guess second a couple of years ago.
I mean, we're gonna grind this year, that we're gonna
grind this year.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, So I'm curious kind of how you know, given
your legacy and that you're you're still I mean, if
I were to say, like, who is the person I
most look up to in the game, it would be you, honestly,
because because of the of what you've accomplished, and it
does it does you know, it means a lot like
where you came from, and you know kind of what
you've done. And I don't know who's number two, right,
(38:35):
Like you're you're kind of in a category.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Of your own.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
So how do you you know, how do you think
about your your legacy? You're still very much alive and
still playing, but like how you know, how is that
a part of your life other than you know, being
a part of your Zoom background.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Oh man, I don't know. It's weird. I was just
never wanted to think that much about that kind of stuff, Like,
you know, I don't know, it just wasn't me, Like
I didn't like all that that the attention about it
and and the pomp and circumstance of it and all.
I don't know that that's you know, look, Kristian Bicknell
is probably gonna like win a bunch more money like
(39:11):
this year, She's gonna overtake that spot, and then I'll
just be some random husband. You know. I don't think
that'll be good.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
No, you'll be the You'll be the deuce five into
ass never never never, the random husband. You know, the
go ahead.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yeah. Oh, I was just gonna say, I do feel
like I'm in a spot where, like for a few years,
I felt like I want nothing to do with this game,
and I find myself like coming around like really remembering
why I love the game. Like, you know, I really
had like a love hate relationship followed by like a
hate hate relationship with it towards the end, Like you know,
we would hang out and you'd be like my friends
met the end of my burger who my friends be like,
so we're gonna go play the tournament. I'm like, no,
I see, I'll see it later. Let me know any
(39:48):
bus you know. But but now I feel like whenever
I'm playing, I'm having fun again, and I don't feel
like burdened by all of the different stuff that came
that came with the I don't know, so so I
enjoy playing Again.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
If you're at a random dinner party, you don't know,
somebody is super well, right, was it more awkward to
introduce yourself as a potker player or is a hedge fund.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Rhenna? Actually, my wife has this funny joke because I
used to go around, you know, and people would talk
about it all the time, and I was used to
getting all this attention and stuff, so I would just
be like, oh, like, you know whatever, I play poker,
you know, and I would try to try to change
the subject. And now I like go out to people
and I'm like, they're like, what do you do? And
I'm like, I'm I'm a trader, like in finance, and
they just like look around. But I used to be
(40:33):
a poker player, like so bored by the time I
finish the sentence, and I'm like, no, no, no, I swear
to god, I'm a little more interesting. So the grass
is always greener, I guess. So, So what's next for you?
What does the future hold for Vanessa? I don't know
what is I mean, who knows? Really? I mean, I
love my job, so hopefully I'll do that for a
(40:54):
little while At least and kind of play it by year. Honestly,
I don't see myself like reinventing myself again. But but
I think some combination of trading poker hobbies, spend time
with the kids, Like, you know, my kids are really
fun age. They're almost five and almost.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Time time to start them playing poker.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, I know, know it really is. My older one,
Felix's friend is really into poker, and so I keep
trying to be like, let's go over to Clark's house
and like, let's go play poker. But yeah, so some
combination of that stuff. Like I think probably my guess
is like when I'm retired or something and maybe who knows,
ten years or ten fifteen years, like just poker much
(41:38):
more recreationally. You know, I'll have to get you guys
to like start a regular home game.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
That will be fun. Well, We'll make the hardest hardest
home game in ther poker. It will be fun. Well, Vanessa,
this has been such an absolute pleasure. I am so
glad that Eric introduced us and that I got to
meet you, and I don't know, you know, I think
you have made my life richer and I hope that
(42:03):
all of our listeners will have learned something from listening
to you today.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Thank you well, Thank you guys so much for so
much that we appreciate you spending this time with us.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm.
And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber,
we have some bonus content for you. We'll be answering
a listener question each week that's coming up right after
the credits.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for
just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price
you get access to all that premium content and ad
for listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit. Sally
helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
If you like this show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too. Thanks so much
for tuning in
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Acting from Boy Klaa
Pushkin. Hey everyone, Maria here with an exciting opportunity for
any of our listeners who are also new poker players.
Nate and I are looking for a beginning player who
is heading to this year's World Series of Poker. We
might want to talk with you before the tournament, hear
(00:36):
your story, maybe even offer you some advice. Reach out
to Risky Business at Pushkin dot FM if you're interested.
No guarantees, but here comes our first piece of advice.
It's plus ev to send that email. Welcome back to
(01:00):
Risky Business, a show about making better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And I'm Nate Selver.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Today on the show, we have a very special guest,
Vanessa Celtst. Vanessa and I first met when we were
both Poker Stars Team pros. I was just starting out
playing poker and Vanessa was just getting the hell out
of there. And Vanessa remains one of the most impressive
people I have ever met in or out of poker.
(01:29):
Yale undergrad Yale Law School, only female poker player ever
to have reached number one on the GPI that's Global
Poker Index rankings overall. So both men and women like
just number one, period, but only female to have ever
done that, over eleven million in earnings, three World Series
(01:51):
of Poker bracelets, and then left it all behind, left
that glamorous life behind to join Bridgewater Associates and go
into the Hedge fun world, after which she went to
Jane Street Capital, which is where we find her today.
Welcome to the show, Vanessa.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Thanks Maria, thank you for that intros. Definitely more than
I deserve, but I appreciate nonetheless.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And Nate, how long have you known Vanessa?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I think I knew her kind of about the time,
maybe when she quit, maybe I reached out and I'm like, oh,
you know, if you've kind of left poke for other things,
I know, since it was stupid cold email, I think,
and we wound up becoming friends and we have a
lot in common, and so I'm a huge admirer of
Vanessa as well.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
That's not right at all, Nate. We met at a
really awkward well, my wife was joking, was like a
really awkward date. You don't remember this? And a Aussie
millions and.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Like, oh millions, Okay, when are we.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Twelve or twenty fourteen? I don't even know what year
it was, but like I don't know the people at
Astie Millions were like, Nate Silver wants to meet you.
I was like, oh, I want to meet him. And
then we went on like like at dinner, but it
was just like super awkward and funny, but like it
was a good time.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I suppressed it.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And then that was when we first hung out, but
then we didn't really start hanging out till a few
years later, so I just didn't know. That was a
very special one of my awkwardest states that I've ever had,
so I guess it was more meaningfully awkward to me,
but that's okay, it was it was a good time.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So I actually I remember the first time I met
you was in Monte Carlo. It was my first ever
Poker Stars stop and it was my first ever major,
kind of major tournament period. I knew, you know, I
had known nothing about poker and kind of there I was,
and Eric Sidell introduced us. Eric Sidell, obviously you know
(03:45):
who he is, and listeners of the show, no, he is,
you know, one of the greatest players of all time
became my coach and he was like, I want you
to meet Vanessa Selts. She's really really impressive, and I
was like, I don't want to meet Vanessa. She's scarce me.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And then and then we met and at first I
was like, I don't think she likes me, and Eric's like, no, no,
she likes you. And then we became friends and I
realized that you were actually pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Well thanks, yeah, it was great, great to me beginning
of a great friendship. You know, it is funny that
you say that, because there is this thing where there's
less like you know, not to get to like whatever
serious about kind of a lighthearted anecdote, and it's like,
there really is this thing where you're on TV and
you're or you're just playing poker in general, not even
on TV, where you know, you're like you have your
(04:33):
game face, you're like in the zone. And I get
really intense when I'm playing, and I'm like really concentrating,
and I'm also often like playing pretty aggressive. So there's
this like weird like crossover between your poker style and
your personality, right, and so I can come across it's
like really intense, and I get really intense sometimes, like
I'm really in the moment, and I think sometimes it
would just be like really intense and people will be like,
(04:55):
oh my god, who is this person?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
But you're you're very self I mean, you're very self possessed.
And I never want to make assumptions about someone's inner
confidence level versus how they project outwardly. But did you
feel like it was an advance just to be on TV?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Oh? Like, was it an advantage that I got to
be on TV playing poker? Like? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Do you feel I guess do you feel like you
played better on TV relative or you know, maybe everyone
plays worse because there's more external factors to deal with.
But did you like if you are told I'm at
whatever day of the World Series main event, right you're
at the future table? Is are you happy about that
or not? Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Man, that's a complicated question. That's a good questions, complicated
question because I didn't actually like the act of like
being on TV, if you will, just like, I definitely
had advantage over my competitors at a random World Series
tournament where I've been on that stage a million times
and they haven't, and I'm gonna make better decisions and stuff.
But I just didn't like it on like a visceral level.
(05:58):
But being on TV was actually a huge advantage for me,
I kind of like utilized that. Basically, what I mean
to say is like I got a reputation the first
time I was ever on TV. I made this like
really crazy bluff. I four bet all in with with
two five suited. It was a thing that happens now
occasionally is still considered a reckless play, but at the
time it was two thousand and six and no one
(06:18):
had ever seen anyone do that or like had any idea,
you know what I mean. You re raised with like
pocket aces, maybe as king if you were feeling like bluffy,
you know at the time. And so when that happened,
I got this reputation as being like the craziest person
in the world, you know, in poker.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And by the way, you managed to run into aces
in that hand.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I did manage to run to aces, And I don't
know if that was a coincidence. Having just explained that
most people that three bet usually had aces, so the
point just being like it was this crazy play, and
everybody kind of took notice, you know, They're like, I
don't look like your typical poker player. I wasn't playing
like your typical poker butler like, who is this person?
And I think that stuck out in people's mind so
(06:56):
much that I just instantly got this reputation for being
this like crazy, crazy player, to the point where I
would play games and I, you know, I would end
up in like one thousand big blind pots meaning for
the average view were meaning pods that were like way
bigger than your average pot, like just a giant, giant,
giant pot, and I would like go all in on
(07:16):
the river, and I would get called by like Ace High,
and You're just like, how do I end up in
a situation where there's like a thousand big blinds in
the middle and I'm being called by Ace High? And
so anyway to get back to the original point of
what I was saying, like I was just as crazy
player and I was never gonna shake that image. And
so it's honestly part of what led me to retire
from poker because it was pretty boring. I like really
just couldn't bluff nearly as much as your average person.
(07:38):
Like every story was like, so I knew they had
third pair, so I just gave up, or like you know,
or I decided I was either gonna put in you know,
my entire stack or give up. And so what I
ended up doing was realizing I was like, okay, I
literally I get the most action of any player ever,
so I just have to play tight. This is the
most profitable strategy by far. So whenever I went on TV,
(08:02):
if there was ever a close decision between like making
aggressive action like bluff or rays or just like folder call,
I always took the aggress action. And sometimes even when
it wasn't a close decision, you know, like when I,
you know, five bet shove with Jackson and suit whatever.
But I wasn't trying to light money on fire. But
it was this really weird real thing where it was
like I would give up a little bit of equity
or a lot of equity sometimes to just kind of
(08:23):
maintain this crazy image because you know, and I can
say this now because I don't play poker anymore, but
it was like a decade of me just like playing
I would say, I mean postlop I was pretty aggressive,
but like preflop I was probably tighter than like ninety
percent of the table honestly, because I couldn't never shake
that image anyway. So I was just like, let me
use these like TV time as a way to kind
(08:45):
of keep up my reputation, and people just believe what
they see on TV, and that was just the most
profitable way to play.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, So I think you're raising a really interesting point,
which is that you know, when you're talking about you know,
we we love poker on this show, not just because
we all play poker, but because it's such a great
way of looking at decision making. And I think you
you're raising a really important point, which is that no
decision is made in a vacuum.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I have a very different reputation from yours, but you know,
I've been a bounty in big events and I hate
it because you can't bluff. Right, It's kind of the
same thing.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
We're just funny thing. We're like, we'll talk up. So
you've said, I think a couple of times, Maria, we're like, okay,
when you make a big shove or a big bet
on the river and an opponent tanks, and if you're
not a poker fan, that means they're waiting, you know,
at least half a minute to several minutes to make
a decision.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
In my experience, when they tank against me, they fold
two thirds of the time. Right, And you said it's
the opposite for me, they.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Call right for me. The longer they tank, the more
I'm like, okay, motherfucker, just call already, right, like, you know,
just stop, take me out of my misery hand. And
it is, you know, it is so incredibly you know,
there's I think that's one of the interesting things about poker.
And I'm curious, you know, how how you see it
both in poker and outside of poker, kind of that
added layer to it, right that there is it's not
(10:04):
just the math, right, that every single risk assessment, every
single decision is so dependent on the player, on the situation,
on the dynamics, on all of those things. The math
is there, right, the math matters, but but there's so
much more going on.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
One hundred percent. And I think your point about like
the longer it takes that being the key point of
divergence is like a really a really great perception because
I think that is like we have all these kind
of emotional biases and you know, like if you usually
your brain is kind of leading the charge for the
first like beginning of your decision making, right, and then
(10:41):
eventually it's like the emotional the monkey brain or whatever
it takes over. And that's what I used to say
about you know, to go back to that story about
how people would call me with these crazy, crazy hands,
and it's like there were hands where the only way
to correct call if I'm like bluffing with a part
of my rain, like we're spots, you're supposed to bluff
like fifteen percent, they would have to have assumed I
(11:02):
was bluffing like eighty percent to make the call. And
it's like, Okay, you see a person who's had like
very good poker results. Could I be like the one
point zho one percent luckiest person and just a terrible
poker player. I guess it's possible, athough, like from a
Baysian perspective, like probably, like if the other priors that like,
you're wrong about my range, like probably that should be
(11:24):
a stronger prior, but like hey, never mind. So you know,
people would make these calls where I'm like, Okay, the
only way that this call could be correct is if
I'm just a terrible player and getting lucky all the time.
Like there's no way that I could be a successful
player and be bluffing the frequency that it needs to be.
But it didn't matter, Like it was just like I've
seen you on TV I call you know what I mean,
or like, I'm not gonna be bluffed by you. I'm
(11:46):
not gonna be bullied by you. And it was truly
incredible because if you really just thought about it from
a from a logical decision making like rational perspective, it
would just be an absurd way to play against anyone.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So I'm curious. So you think when people take longer
to make a decision that they get more emotional because
people would say, well, I'm going through all the all
the different combinations and thinking through things carefully. You think
that like actually kind of like.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I think mostly there, yeah, a few people are thinking
through the combinations.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But even if you're thinking through the combinations, I think, like,
even in a really complicated way, it takes you like
max thirty seconds to get like ninety percent of the
way there. Like, I just think that time is allowing
so much more emotional stuff to creep in that it's
just like the ratio of like math to emotion is
just like definitely going down over time.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Totally agree if you so, you were kind of playing
in the era before solvers became quite so ubiquitous.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
If I don't think they existed at the beginning when
I've literally.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Never used a solver before.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So and a solver, if you're not aware at home,
is a product that literally solves the Nash equilibrium for a.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Poker literally since it doesn't actually exist. But yes, wait,
what do you.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Mean, Well, there's a because you a nashqlibrium Truther.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
No, but because poker is an unsolved game, it approximates
a solution.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
But it's true to break down, it's true. Well wow, sorry,
that is true technically. Actually, you know, I feel like
when you need that means literally Truther.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So yeah, yeah, would you how would you play differently today?
Do you think you'd try to be more quote unquote
gto driven or even or less so or this or
the same?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
That's that's a great question. And so my goal is
just to make the most money, right, it's not to
like play in a way that makes Jane Street look
more like a reasonable place and not make crazy bluffs. Right.
So okay, just under that premise, I would say, I think,
I mean, so in my career, I'm a trader, like
poker player, trader or whatever. It is, Like you think
(13:49):
about where does your edge come from? And uh, it's
certainly for me not in playing GTO better than anybody
else at this point, Like I've literally never used to solver.
I've never studied it. I'm also very unpracticed from the game,
and so I don't even remember like what the lines
I'm supposed to take in various spots are. Like I
used to come close enough to what the solvers would
(14:10):
say if I had used them. It was actually like
pretty cool. I would ask my friends, and I'd be like,
I kind of got there, you know, just from understanding
the theoretical underpinnings of the game. And I'm pretty far
from that because I really play maybe once or twice
a year at this point for the last almost decades,
so you know, I don't have to play less GGO.
My strategy back then was to put people, you know,
(14:31):
people that were trying to play GTO that I thought
were just kind of like memorizing, and like there was
this there's this class of poker players that was like
successful because they were good at memorizing things and not
not that great at thinking through things. And so I
was like, Okay, let me sacrifice a little bit of
EV on an early part of the hand in order
to get them into a spot they're very unused to,
(14:51):
uncomfortable with, and just outreason them in a spot where
the pot is much bigger. And I would just do
that repeatedly, and kind of through doing that, I would,
you know, kind of figure out where the population where
most players were making the most mistakes and you know,
and so I think I would just do that, but
even more because I think my edge there is probably
(15:12):
still similar to what it is now. You know, it
would take me a while. I probably wouldn't be winning
at first doing that, because I think part of the
reason that was such a successful strategy for me was
like I would just see the same thing over and over.
I would be like, you know, I don't know, not
to make it too pokery, but I'd be like, oh,
I check the turn in a spot that no one
would and then I would like raise small and then
(15:32):
you know whatever, like some weird line that no one takes,
but I would take it a lot, And so I
would see how people would react over and over again.
But I think, like whenever you're making any decision, and
I think this applies to trading way even more than poker,
it's just like thinking through really really carefully like where
does your edge come from? Where does my edge not
come from? Where am I getting outplayed? And so that
(15:53):
would have to be the answers.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
No, I would much rather play against like a gto
perfect player than like Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I think it's such a smart strategy, both in poke
around in life to put people in parts of the
game tree where they're not as familiar, right, get them
out of their comfort zone. And I've been on the
receiving end of that when I was just starting out.
There are some people who are very exploited of players.
I still remember a hand I played against someone you
know of Vanessa Joe Chong, and he defended the blinds.
(16:24):
I was a pre flap raiser. He checked, I bet
and then he led the turn and I was already
planning to bet that turn. I was a perfect barrel
cart and he led it. I was like, what the hell,
what are you doing? And it really I messed up.
I ended up busting the tournament on that hand.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And he's probably done that a bunch of times. But
now he kind of understands how people in their first
time reacting to that react and you know, the mistakes
wind up being way bigger. Yeah, he's making a conscious decision.
You know. It's really interesting. One thing I have heard
that Once again, I don't know anything about this, so
if I might be speaking on my ass but I
think you can do things like node lock. So if
(17:04):
you make some assumptions about, you know, the way a
player will react in a certain spot, you can like
you know, that's different than GTO. I think you can
no luck and then you can like kind of go
back and say, okay, like conditional on them reacting a
certain way, what is my gto play? And like that's
what GGO is about. It's not or that's what like
just I guess solid strategy and anything is about. It's
(17:24):
not like supposed to be this rigid thing. It's supposed
to be a way to say, okay, conditional on these
assumptions I'm making about the world, what is the best
course of action. The problem is that gdo pure GTO.
The assumption that it's relying on is that everybody else
is going to play perfectly. And then if you condition
on different assumptions, it's going to tell you like different things.
(17:45):
And so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
And we'll be back right after this. You have a
unique background for people who went into the world of poker,
And I mean, I think something that unites a lot
(18:11):
of what you've done is kind of the competitive edge
to it, the love of games. But you went to
undergrad you studied political science, right, and then you played
poker after that. But then even though you were ridiculously successful,
you didn't go pro. You went to law school and
only then after law school did you go into professional poker.
(18:32):
Can you talk us through that and how kind of
how that thinking went and kind of what the strand,
whether the strand that I have picked out, kind of
the competition and kind of the game aspect of it
is correct or not? You know, how did that all
work out?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It's not that deep. For me. It was mostly me
trying to convince myself I'm not a degenerate, when in
fact I am a degenerate. So yeah, that was I mean, honestly,
it was a lot of like, oh, this isn't actually
what I'm doing for a career, right, Like that's not
a real career, and so it was much more like
a hobby. And honestly it kind of always was a
(19:09):
hot be for me.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
When did you start playing?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
And like, well, I mean I started playing in high school,
like when we watched Rounders. Oh wow, my friends and
I love to play. Yeah, old school, and so yeah,
my friends and I used to play in like the
lunch room. But but I started getting more serious at Yale.
There was a like a game where like a bunch
of people were like getting pretty serious about the game.
And I discovered two plus two and I started going
(19:33):
to Foxwits every week, and you know, so the story goes,
and then so I played for a few years and
it was okay, But then I don't know, I just
like thought, I don't know, you know, like you're from
like an upper middle class Jewish background. You're like, you know,
you're taught like education, blah blah blah, Like I'd done
well in school. I thought that was kind of just
like the path. I thought this was just kind of
like a fun sidetrack thing for me. And so yeah,
(19:58):
I took all my money offline when I went to
law school, and I was like, I'm not not doing this.
I'm not going to like fall into playing pograming nor
my studies. This is like a great opportunity. That's what
I always wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
And you'd always wanted to be a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, yeah, I thought I did. I mean that, you know,
there's like, you know, you don't know what careers actually
are available to when you're younger, but.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
It's kind of done that they make you pick when
you're young.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I know. But uh yeah, so I had no idea.
So so I thought I wanted to be a lawyer,
and I just ended up falling back into poker because
I just ran like hotter than the sun in law school.
Like there were these four tournaments that I played like two.
There was one tournament Fox that it was in one
tournament Mohigan both years, and I played some like it
(20:41):
was like you know, a three K, a three K.
There was a main event or some and I just
like one three of them and got third in the
other one. It was, Yeah, it was really dumb. It was.
I mean, part of it was probably like I was
not being in my own head anymore about like I
was still not far enough from move poker that I
was still pretty good at it. Everybody else was terrible
at that time, and and I was just like feeling it,
(21:02):
you know what I mean. I didn't care. I was
just playing my game and stuff. So obviously I was
also running hotter than the sun, and so I kind
of just fell back into it. Point.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Have you seen twenty one, which is a movie adaptation
of Bring Down the House? Right? Yeah, they like fly
back from like Vegas with like tens of thousands of
dollars in their pockets, right, and they have to like
go to their fucking like Monday morning classes. Where you
feel like I am cooler and or smarter than these people.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean not cooler or smarter. That
definitely was smarter, was definitely not up there, but it
was like definitely like honestly I would better, you know
what I mean. I felt like on top of the
world for sure. It was always really fun.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
So how long were you kind of doing the whole
poker tournament live world travel scene and like just because
like not many people do that, right, And Yeah, I'm
interested in you because you're not somebody I think if
you you know, you have a lot of attitude, peness
at a lot of a lot of things. Yeah, so
you might not always find your way into this, But like,
what's it like for someone like you, young, openly gay,
(21:58):
very bright, has you know, is interested in politics in
the world. What's it like kind of being on the
poker scene for a few years, the kind of grindiness
of it or the glamour of it.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, honestly, I like never really felt like a poker pro.
And I know that's weird to say. To answer your question,
I played. I would say it was like close as
close to full time as I ever was from twenty
eleven to twenty seventeen. So that was kind of like
the main part of my poker career when I was
mostly not doing other things, although I still dabbled, dabbled
(22:31):
in law because I think I was still always trying
to convince myself that I wasn't really a poker player
or something. But yeah, because honestly, it was hard. It
was like I think it can be really fun, you know,
you you know like it it's you know, you're playing poker.
It's the ultimate lifestyle. You're seeing the world. I mean,
I don't want to downplay like it was. It was
(22:51):
really great and it was really fun. You're you're seeing
the world, you know, traveling from country to country or whatever.
You get to play a game pretty much all day
every day if you want to. If you wake up
and you don't feel like going to work. You don't
go to work like you you know, you were in
ultimate control of everything, and at the end of the day,
it's really fun. You're meeting really interesting people from all
(23:11):
over the world. I did find it hard, I guess,
to kind of stay informed and stay kind of doing
things that felt like meaningful. I think a lot of
foker players struggle with that, like finding meaning, Like when
you're just playing a card game all the time, it's like,
kind of what is the point of this? You know?
When I was doing law, my goal was to be
a civil rights attorney, but I just, you know, my
(23:34):
brain is built in a certain way, and I tried
being a lawyer, but it was horribly inefficient and just
like I just couldn't do it, Like it just felt
really slow and not like fun. And I think poker
and trading is the thing that like gets me really
excited in terms of the strategy, Like you're constantly making
strategic decisions like every second of the day. So for me,
it was just sort of like an evolution of my
(23:56):
understanding of self that I that I knew this is
what like made me happy, and then what do I
have to do to make meaning for myself in the world,
and so being in the poker world, it was just
like hard to kind of be more well rounded, like
have interest into in places. It was like, you know,
when you're traveling, there's this weird disoriented thing of like
being your physical environment kind of dictates like what you're
(24:16):
thinking about or what you're focusing on. And so for me,
it's like, now I have a boring routine. I have kids,
I wake up, I like have my boring commute, I
like go to the office, you know what I mean,
Like I just kind of like understand what life is.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
If you have a big trade on, do you enjoy
the sweat of that?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
What he's asking is, are you still a djen Vanessa?
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Am I still a dgen? Yeah? No, for sure, I'm
still a DGEN, much more so than anybody else. I'm like,
for sure, I like to, you know, sweat the outcome
of trades and stuff. But you're you know, but but
much less than poker than I you know, it's not
like the most DGEN exciting stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Okay, so you're playing poker, I can imagine a very
very particular skills set. I don't know if I want
to stereotype people I can imagine a very particular type
person has like poor social skills and it's very undisciplined,
right for whom like poker is a maximizing amount of money,
but for for ninety seven percent of good players, then
(25:11):
you can probably make more money doing something else if
you still want it to be a DJ, and then
you can go work for Hedge fund or something.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
But like, I mean, when you shots fired, how.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Did you get into this industry?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
That?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Because I mean you you you quit and literally the
New York Times write about you. That's pretty cool. Yeah,
did you find Bridgewater or they found you or or
you found them through friends or have this relationship come about?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah? It was just Galen, like Galen Hall, another really
successful poker player. Like I didn't know anything about finance.
I kind of thought of it as like, you know,
the Wolf of Wall Street kind of situation. You know.
So Galen was working at Bridgewater and he was like, oh, yeah,
this place like they'll hire you. They have a really
good kind of like education program. And so I was
(25:55):
just thrilled that, you know, I had heard about finance
and like kind of how it was similar to poker.
And my mom actually had been an options trader when
an avid poker player.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
What year was that?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
How did that happen?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah? She played poker, uh like basically to put herself
through college, which I guess was in like seventy three
or seventy two, and then was an option trader like
in the nineties. Yeah, on the American stock. It's pretty crazy.
The only woman I think.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I was gonna say there might must not have been
married many.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It was basically just her and so so I'd heard
about it, but I but I didn't know much about it,
and so Galen was like, yeah, they'll they'll teach you
and whatever. So I was just told someone was like
willing to give me a job. But yeah, ultimately it wasn't.
It wasn't like the right fit. And they're like kind
of more they do like kind of like long term
investment strategy stuff, and so it felt more like a
(26:51):
think tank. Like I would try to get people to
gamble with me on stuff and they were just like no,
And I'm like, what, like what you know, don't we
work at a Like I would finally get people to
gamble with me, they'd owe me like, you know, seven
dollars and sixty cents because like that's what they were
comfortable gambling for. And they were like or like whatever,
and they're like, okay, can you pay me? And I'm
like yeah, like let's just flip until it's like one
hundred or zero and you actually liked this story. Literally,
(27:12):
I would have debts of like thirteen dollars that I
would have to pay, and so I'd be like, okay,
let's just flia, like lets of roll one hundred sid
to die and you know, I'll take thirteen number or
you can take thirteen numbers and you know, if you
get one of them, I'll give you a hundred bucks.
And they're like no, I'm just like they're like, I
don't campl like I can't deal with this. So what
I I went to the bank and I got a
(27:34):
lot of rolls of pennies and some nickels, and I
unrolled them all a lot of them, like a hundred
rolls of pennies and like one hundred rolls of nickels,
and I put them in a bag under my desk.
And anytime someone wanted me to pay them a debt
and a number that wasn't a round number, I used
to just sort through my bag of pennies and nickels
and pay the debt that way.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
That is the best.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah, And when when I left, actually my old coworkers
met up at some point like a few months later,
and they were like, oh, we found this bag of
pennies under your desk? Did you want them? Like? No, no, no,
it's you.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Worked with a bunch of nets, Vanessa, is what you're
trying to.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I was like, literally, do you guys remember that this?
But anyway, so it wasn't it wasn't the same kind
of fit. But luckily that's where I heard about Jane Street,
which is a much better fit.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
So do you feel like poker has kind of enabled
you to excel in that kind of environment? Was it
transferable or were both of these things that you kind
of carried with you both to poker and now to
Bridgewater and then and then Jane Street? Like is it
is it what you're bringing to it or did it?
Did it impart knowledge that you're now using as well?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Oh? I mean like of course, Like it's a completely
different sphere, Like there was a ton to learn, there's
still a ton to learn, like learning all the time.
It's it's like such a complicated, complex like world, but poker.
I mean, I didn't realize just how much it mattered,
like how much, whether it just poker or just general
strategic thinking. Like I think the way that poker players
(29:06):
think is the way that traders think, just thinking about
things and expected values, but also just like thinking about
the different players in a game and your motivations, because
if you're trading, someone else is on the other side
of the trade, and particularly I trade options and options
are like really complex things where there's like a lot
of different kinds of risk and different like kind of
(29:27):
distributions of returns and whatever, and so you really have
to think through like the different possible situations, the probabilities
of them, what's someone's motivation, the whole concept of average selection.
Who am I trading against? What is their motivation? It
really does feel like being in a poker game, and
and there's a reason, like a lot of you know,
there's a lot of poker players at the firm that
are anywhere from casual poker players where there's always poker
(29:48):
games going. We have poker tables in our like main cafeteria,
and so there's always a poker game after work and
then you know, even at the World Series, a couple
of the guys always go out and one of them
actually I think got like second or third, I don't
actually remember, and one of the one of the events
last year. So there's like some serious poker players here
and it's not you know, it's not a coincidence. Like
(30:09):
there's huge amount of like crossover skills.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Do you find it hard to play against coworkers because
of like the office politics dimension of it?
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Uh no, no, only office politics.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And I love how you said that.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Competition. No, no, no, it's like it's actually like amazing
because I think Jane Street is really good at this.
If like it's it's really competitive in the sense of
like everybody comes from a place of like being having
really competitive background. Like a lot of a lot of
the people that get hired are people that have a
history of playing games or math competitions or or whatever.
(30:45):
It is, like you know a lot of people with
like really competitive personalities. But Jane Street is a place
that is very collaborative, like out of all of the
different you know, training firms or whatever, like just for
a lot of reasons, like it's just like a very
collaborative like congenial place. So it's sort of like a
great mix where we're like super competitive with each other
(31:07):
at the poker table, but just in like a fun
you know, a place where people just really appreciate when
someone like outplays someone else and just like oh yeah, props,
like that was awesome. Like everyone just wants to outplay
each other, you know, and and play really well, and
like that's that's the joy of it is is just
like finding the best play and figuring it out, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Is that a gp I award that I spy over
your shoulders?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Pokers? It's a bookend. It's a bookend.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, but it is a GPI. It as a book
and you're using it. But but don't don't skirt the question.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You don't know about prize. It's a bookend.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
It's someone important. I guess it is. Yeah, Actually, I
just know you'll like this too. I just finally cleaned
out my garage after four years. Uh. We am renovating
the basement. And we moved here four years ago and
in Montclair, New Jersey, and we realized that I hadn't
really unpacked. So I finally found all of my old trophies.
(32:19):
This is now sitting in my office. It's my old
oh bartous poker turn. This is the best biggest tournament
I ever won. It's covered in hay.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
This is okay, you can.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Find some hey here you go. There's like a whole
bunch of hay everywhere. I don't know if you can see. Yeah,
because my wife decided that it was a good idea
to purchase lots of different bales of hay and keep
them also in our garage. So now all of because
I don't know, you have to decorate for fall. I
don't know, there's like a lapse. She's very into decorating,
and there's apparently a lapse between Halloween and Christmas that
involves lots of barrels of hay. But anyway, all of
(32:52):
my old trophies are now covered in hay and have
like lots of cracks. So I got to figure out
what to do with them, maybe like some kind of
we My kids were trying to use them as weapons.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So Partush was the biggest tournament you ever won, Yeah,
and the biggest trophy. It's amazing, Vanessa, were you at
the par two with the cheating scandal or was that
not your year?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Oh? Yeah, that was that was my year. Yeah, that's
a good, great memory that you remember that.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Well, I'm I'm writing a book about cheating right now,
so oh awesome. So for people who aren't familiar since
you were there, do you this is a great story
and involved journalism or faux journalism and a lot of things. So, Nest,
do you want to tell us a little bit about
your part tuwish victory and this crazy moment?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah? So well, from my perspective, I was a triplayer
going into the final table and it was the delayed
final table, which was crazy. So we finished the tournament
in September and played down to the final table and
then played the final table in November, so we had
like two months to stew on it. So I'm having
like literal nightmares that I'm like chip leader my equity.
It was the biggest turnam I ever played. First prize
was almost two million, you know, and and I was
(33:57):
having nightmares that I would like bust out ninth. So
when I get there and they're like, oh, congratulations, everyone's
got at least eighth, I was like, okay, cool, I'm
going to win this now, you know, like basically all
of my nightmares were no more. But but yeah, so
when I got there, there like yeah, you're all guaranteed
eighth for like what they're like, Oh yeah. One of
the guys was just like cheating the whole time, throughout
the whole tournament and also on the whole poker tour. Yeah,
(34:17):
he had these like like journalists I guess with this
like fake website that had nothing on it. I think
it was like I don't remember the name of the site,
but he would just have like fake journalists stand behind
people and like fake report and then just like give
signs to this guy Ali what was his name.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
His name was Ali Tecantum.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Guk tech and Togak. There you go.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah, it's pretty good fucking cheat.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah. So he would just give him signals on like
what they had, and he was just like looking over
at peaper soldiers. It was so old school. There's no devices,
there's no like, you know, poker's gotten a lot more sophisticated,
like we've gotten poker cheating solvers now. I feel like,
you know that are just uh, they're like that's not
the gto way to cheat, Like the GTO way to
cheat with this strategy would have at least involved having
legitimate poker blog that had some words on it. But
(35:02):
but yeah, so he was finally discovered.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
So you can't trust you can't trust journalists. See.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Well it was one of those things where when I
heard that story, I was like, oh wow, like you
really need to learn how to protect your cards, Like, yeah,
just you know, it's crazy that cheating. I mean, cheating
has always been a part of whenever there's money. Even
when there's no money, there's there's cheating. People cheat on
trivia nights. But yeah, I just remember that he had
(35:27):
the fake journalists who would look at people's cards and
just hand signs, completely old school, and you think about.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
All this, like the press hats and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Probably they had, yeah, all of these things.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
It went on for like a year and a half
something crazy like it was. But like the number of
cheating scales that you've read about and been like, wow,
if you were just a little less greedy, you could
have gotten away with this forever.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Absolutely no, I mean I think that's the case with
most of them, whether or not it's poker, that if
you just cheated a little bit smarter and you know,
got out a little bit faster, we would not know
about it. And some of the biggest cheating stories in
poker they did get out, and so.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Oh my god, you have to get a nice user for.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Your people's reputation that is more or less intact.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Really, are you gonna uncover some of this in your book?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I will have to have some alleged lies in there.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I will.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I will tell you that one of the people is
no longer alive, so you could probably put two and
two together.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
But yeah, that's my favorite guy.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Mahi have been from the Southern United States.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, Nate's accents, Nate's accent. So are you now, you know,
now that you're kind of settled down, do you how
do you feel about poker? I'm actually just curious. You know,
we obviously know it's a big part of your life
because you have your GPI award in your zoom background
(36:51):
and you've got your No you're not, You've got your partner.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
I mean, I've got that World Series Poker carpeting.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I think, where are your bracelets? Vanessa? But I mean
it is, it is, Actually, it is remarkable that and
you know, there's a numbers game. A lot of things
have changed in the game since you've left, but a
lot of things haven't. This year was a record low
number of women in the WSP main event for like,
you know, it just it went, it went down.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And realize that it was. It's just like low enough
that it's.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Just yeah, it was just yeah exactly in terms of
like the last you know, when people have been tracking this,
there's still So when I won my first bracelet this year,
I was, I think.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Woman, I don't know, you want to bracelet what?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So I was woman number like twenty nine. I think
it was. I don't remember. It was under thirty women
who've won open bracelet events since the beginning?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
What did you win? I really don't follow poker all,
but congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
It was that was eighty eight crazy eights.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
So that that was fun. But it was a you know,
women's are still not really winning open events, like so
if you don't count the women's events, then you don't
count seen.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's still under thirty. Like I said, I
think I was number twenty nine.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I don't. Actually I feel embarrassed to be in the
presence of two bracelet winners.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I am, I fucking guess second a couple of years ago.
I mean, we're gonna grind this year, that we're gonna
grind this year.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, So I'm curious kind of how you know, given
your legacy and that you're you're still I mean, if
I were to say, like, who is the person I
most look up to in the game, it would be you, honestly,
because because of the of what you've accomplished, and it
does it does you know, it means a lot like
where you came from, and you know kind of what
you've done. And I don't know who's number two, right,
(38:35):
Like you're you're kind of in a category.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Of your own.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
So how do you you know, how do you think
about your your legacy? You're still very much alive and
still playing, but like how you know, how is that
a part of your life other than you know, being
a part of your Zoom background.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Oh man, I don't know. It's weird. I was just
never wanted to think that much about that kind of stuff, Like,
you know, I don't know, it just wasn't me, Like
I didn't like all that that the attention about it
and and the pomp and circumstance of it and all.
I don't know that that's you know, look, Kristian Bicknell
is probably gonna like win a bunch more money like
(39:11):
this year, She's gonna overtake that spot, and then I'll
just be some random husband. You know. I don't think
that'll be good.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
No, you'll be the You'll be the deuce five into
ass never never never, the random husband. You know, the
go ahead.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yeah. Oh, I was just gonna say, I do feel
like I'm in a spot where, like for a few years,
I felt like I want nothing to do with this game,
and I find myself like coming around like really remembering
why I love the game. Like, you know, I really
had like a love hate relationship followed by like a
hate hate relationship with it towards the end, Like you know,
we would hang out and you'd be like my friends
met the end of my burger who my friends be like,
so we're gonna go play the tournament. I'm like, no,
I see, I'll see it later. Let me know any
(39:48):
bus you know. But but now I feel like whenever
I'm playing, I'm having fun again, and I don't feel
like burdened by all of the different stuff that came
that came with the I don't know, so so I
enjoy playing Again.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
If you're at a random dinner party, you don't know,
somebody is super well, right, was it more awkward to
introduce yourself as a potker player or is a hedge fund.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Rhenna? Actually, my wife has this funny joke because I
used to go around, you know, and people would talk
about it all the time, and I was used to
getting all this attention and stuff, so I would just
be like, oh, like, you know whatever, I play poker,
you know, and I would try to try to change
the subject. And now I like go out to people
and I'm like, they're like, what do you do? And
I'm like, I'm I'm a trader, like in finance, and
they just like look around. But I used to be
(40:33):
a poker player, like so bored by the time I
finish the sentence, and I'm like, no, no, no, I swear
to god, I'm a little more interesting. So the grass
is always greener, I guess. So, So what's next for you?
What does the future hold for Vanessa? I don't know
what is I mean, who knows? Really? I mean, I
love my job, so hopefully I'll do that for a
(40:54):
little while At least and kind of play it by year. Honestly,
I don't see myself like reinventing myself again. But but
I think some combination of trading poker hobbies, spend time
with the kids, Like, you know, my kids are really
fun age. They're almost five and almost.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Time time to start them playing poker.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, I know, know it really is. My older one,
Felix's friend is really into poker, and so I keep
trying to be like, let's go over to Clark's house
and like, let's go play poker. But yeah, so some
combination of that stuff. Like I think probably my guess
is like when I'm retired or something and maybe who knows,
ten years or ten fifteen years, like just poker much
(41:38):
more recreationally. You know, I'll have to get you guys
to like start a regular home game.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
That will be fun. Well, We'll make the hardest hardest
home game in ther poker. It will be fun. Well, Vanessa,
this has been such an absolute pleasure. I am so
glad that Eric introduced us and that I got to
meet you, and I don't know, you know, I think
you have made my life richer and I hope that
(42:03):
all of our listeners will have learned something from listening
to you today.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Thank you well, Thank you guys so much for so
much that we appreciate you spending this time with us.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm.
And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber,
we have some bonus content for you. We'll be answering
a listener question each week that's coming up right after
the credits.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up for
just six ninety nine a month. What a nice price
you get access to all that premium content and ad
for listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
And by me Nate Silver. The show is a co
production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit. Sally
helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
If you like this show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too. Thanks so much
for tuning in
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Acting from Boy Klaa
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.