Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal, and unfortunately my co host Tracy Alloway
Speaker 1: is out this week, and it's especially unfortunate because we're
Speaker 1: going to be discussing one of Tracy's favorite topics, and
Speaker 1: that is poker. And of course, as longtime listeners know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a joke because it is not one
Speaker 1: of Tracy's favorite topics, it's one of my favorite topics,
Speaker 1: and she always reluctantly agrees to UH to do these
Speaker 1: episodes on this subject. Nonetheless, she would have actually wanted
Speaker 1: to make this one. It just didn't work scheduling wise,
Speaker 1: because today we're not only speaking to one of the
Speaker 1: most successful poker players of all time, and in fact,
Speaker 1: by one measure, the most successful poker player of all time.
Speaker 1: The guest today got his start not by playing poker,
Speaker 1: but by playing a game that Tracy herself is really
Speaker 1: interested in genuinely, which is not poker. So without further ado,
Speaker 1: I want to bring in our guest today and talk
Speaker 1: about how he became successful, how he got his start
Speaker 1: in the game. Bryn Kenny, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us or joining me. It feels great to be here.
Speaker 1: You were, by one ranking the number one most winning
Speaker 1: ist tournament poker player of all time. There's this database
Speaker 1: called the Hendon Mob attracts tournament winnings, and you're number
Speaker 1: one on there right, Yeah, which is pretty cool. I
Speaker 1: mean actually, for a long time I always said that
Speaker 1: I would hit number one in poker, And I mean
Speaker 1: I won the one or chopped the biggest tournament of
Speaker 1: all time this year, which like catapulted me from number
Speaker 1: four to number one. So I was looking at this database.
Speaker 1: It's online, it's called the Hendon Mob. You should check
Speaker 1: it out out. And you've won about fifty five million
Speaker 1: dollars in total tournament money. But you mentioned that tournament.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe this. I thought maybe I was looking
Speaker 1: at a typo. But you won twenty million dollars in
Speaker 1: a single tournament and I didn't even realize prize pod
Speaker 1: got this big. Ever, So how is their tournament that
Speaker 1: had a twenty million dollar prize? Yeah, so there's only
Speaker 1: been about three tournaments of all time with about that
Speaker 1: with this prize. This one was run by guys at
Speaker 1: Triton Poker, where pretty much I think for any high
Speaker 1: stakes tournament. The most important thing to draw a good
Speaker 1: attendance or strong attendance is um by having a bunch
Speaker 1: of v i P players. So they themselves, they made
Speaker 1: a really good ruling in this one where if you
Speaker 1: were a pro and you wanted to play, you had
Speaker 1: to get an invite from a v i P player,
Speaker 1: like you couldn't just go and play there, which made
Speaker 1: it an exclusive tournament and won that what does it
Speaker 1: mean a v I P player, different guest business man,
Speaker 1: I should said instead, So basically what it was was
Speaker 1: this gigantic buy in tournament. It was like a million
Speaker 1: dollars to buy in. It like a million pounds to
Speaker 1: buy in, million pounds plus fifty thousand pounds given the
Speaker 1: charity to buy in. But the it's a mix of
Speaker 1: poker pros and just like people who have a ton
Speaker 1: of money that probably aren't pros. But like the idea
Speaker 1: of being in a tournament with pros, yeah exactly, But
Speaker 1: then also like the idea where it's fifty fifty pros
Speaker 1: to recreational players where usual tournament for high stakes could
Speaker 1: be pros or something, So it makes it much more
Speaker 1: enticing to come and play. Where actually the beginning of
Speaker 1: the tournament. For the first six levels you played with
Speaker 1: only If you were a businessman, you played the only businessman,
Speaker 1: and if you're a pro, you played with only pros,
Speaker 1: and then it mixed in afterwards. This makes sense. So
Speaker 1: if you were to just have a million dollar buy
Speaker 1: in tournament and it were just pros, it's not that
Speaker 1: appealing and it's just people who are really good going
Speaker 1: up against each other. But the businessman gets something out
Speaker 1: of it because they get to play with pros. The
Speaker 1: pros get something out of it because businessmen are probably
Speaker 1: easier money another pros. Yeah, exactly, So a bunch more
Speaker 1: pros will be able to play and sell action pretty
Speaker 1: much because once like a buying gets so big, it
Speaker 1: pretty much comes down to how good the other people
Speaker 1: in the community that buy action think that you are.
Speaker 1: Explain this. So, if a buying is a million dollars
Speaker 1: and you want to enter that tournament, you would sell
Speaker 1: some of your action to investors. So maybe someone buys
Speaker 1: in or buys a piece of you for that tournament
Speaker 1: for fifty or a hundred thousand or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Talk about that market where a pro sells action. How
Speaker 1: does that work? How do you find the people who
Speaker 1: want to stake you. Yeah, so pretty much. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about buying pieces and huge tournaments like
Speaker 1: million or two fifty thousand or so, it's like a
Speaker 1: small group of people who invest pretty much, unless if
Speaker 1: you have outside businessman who wants to invest in you
Speaker 1: or stake you, which happens very rare, So pretty much
Speaker 1: the other like best poker players in the world have
Speaker 1: to think that you're one of the best poker players
Speaker 1: in the world. Also, and then there's a whole market
Speaker 1: like a markup scale also where some people will let's say,
Speaker 1: sell to that sell to the tournament at no markup,
Speaker 1: and some people will sell it, uh, let's say at
Speaker 1: one point one premium. So they're everything they're selling, they're
Speaker 1: getting paid at tem percent premium. And this is like
Speaker 1: they're cut of they're expected value. It's like the investor
Speaker 1: and the players sharing whatever they feel like the expected
Speaker 1: value is of that tournament. So in a particularly juicy tournament,
Speaker 1: let's say there's a lot of rich businessmen and there's
Speaker 1: only a handful of pros, and so theoretically all the pros,
Speaker 1: because they're better than the businessmen, have some reason to
Speaker 1: expect that they will be profitable. Because you have access
Speaker 1: to that tournament, you can charge a premium to the
Speaker 1: investor such that maybe they buy ten percent of your
Speaker 1: initial winnings, but they actually pay you eleven percent, and
Speaker 1: so you're kind of pocketing that premium right off the bat, exactly,
Speaker 1: and you're just getting a better price for whatever piece
Speaker 1: you're having of yourself or even there's been cases where
Speaker 1: someone will sell of themselves, wind up with a five
Speaker 1: percent free rollers and pay nothing for the tournament. Got it, now?
Speaker 1: That makes sense? You know? When I was most closely
Speaker 1: paying attention to poker, it was like a lot of
Speaker 1: people it was. There were the poker boom of the
Speaker 1: mid aughts, and then the the World Series became this
Speaker 1: big thing, and those buyings were like I think ten
Speaker 1: tho dollars and a big buying like sometimes I think
Speaker 1: there was it was like a fifty dollar buying. I
Speaker 1: remember from the World Series. When did this world of
Speaker 1: mega huge buyings emerge where you would have a tournament
Speaker 1: organized and the buying was actually million dollars, Yeah, the millions.
Speaker 1: I think the first one was maybe five years ago
Speaker 1: where they ran a one drop tournament where they got
Speaker 1: a lot of recreational players like g lip Lallerberte ran
Speaker 1: it for his organization and had one drop it was
Speaker 1: called and had a bunch of his friends play and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other businesses. That's what that's the name
Speaker 1: for the World Series. And last year actually they had
Speaker 1: the I think it will be the last one drop
Speaker 1: since it had pretty much no recreational players, So, I mean,
Speaker 1: it can never survive like that is the thing it
Speaker 1: all comes down to. If you're going to raise the
Speaker 1: stakes for super high, you need to have a few
Speaker 1: guys who are playing for fun pretty much, to make
Speaker 1: it so that people are gonna want to gamble big
Speaker 1: that they have a decent advantage pro poker. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work without frankly, people who are not that good at
Speaker 1: it playing Like it can't just be pros playing against
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, I mean then like the best pros
Speaker 1: are just gonna eat the like decent pros. But then
Speaker 1: those guys will stop playing after a little bit too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly has the Mega Buying tournament, you could sort of argue,
Speaker 1: is essentially a market response to the collapse of the
Speaker 1: poker bubble that brought in a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: medium or small dollar people who wanted to play, maybe
Speaker 1: people who uh, you know, they did all right online
Speaker 1: but weren't amazing, or people with a modest amount of
Speaker 1: money that maybe going to Vegas for the tournament was
Speaker 1: kind of a vacation. That market sort of collapsed. So
Speaker 1: in its way, the only real opportunity for like really
Speaker 1: top notch pros is the sort of megabuying level with
Speaker 1: like people with more money than God who want to
Speaker 1: play with guys like you. Yeah, because like I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're younger, you don't even really think about it.
Speaker 1: You spend so much money traveling and playing main events
Speaker 1: where the Biden's five thousand, ten thousand, and unless if
Speaker 1: you're one of like the biggest crushers, you're not really
Speaker 1: going to be doing so well with all the expenses
Speaker 1: that you have to pay. So it's completely different. Once
Speaker 1: you get older, you realize you need to make if
Speaker 1: you're at the top of the game, you want to
Speaker 1: be making more for your time or playing higher stakes
Speaker 1: if it's possible. So, I mean, Try did an amazing
Speaker 1: job where they found a way to make it more
Speaker 1: fun for the recreational players, where they played with half
Speaker 1: field of recreational players. I thought that was a genius
Speaker 1: idea actually, and that's why they instead of I think
Speaker 1: the one the Last one drop had maybe twenty one
Speaker 1: players in the last trite and a million, which was
Speaker 1: even a bit bigger buying uh same rake. I think
Speaker 1: had overdoubled the field, like fifty six players. And I
Speaker 1: think that it will only go up with that because
Speaker 1: a lot of people who weren't there watched this amazing
Speaker 1: production that they put on also, and it's like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: if I could have went and played, I love poker,
Speaker 1: why shouldn't I go and play? So I think for
Speaker 1: the highest steaks, there's just been a great rise. I
Speaker 1: think maybe seven years ago or so it was the
Speaker 1: first time a hundred k event even happened. And back
Speaker 1: then there would be two big tent k's a year,
Speaker 1: one in Bahamas, one in Monte Carlo. Now there's like
Speaker 1: a twenty five k every week or every other week somewhere.
Speaker 1: Hundre k is at every festival. Now I think it's
Speaker 1: even gonna make a turn to two d fifty k
Speaker 1: buyings towards every festival, maybe two three million dollar buyings
Speaker 1: a year. So does the game change at those levels.
Speaker 1: I mean theoretically it shouldn't. But when there's that much
Speaker 1: money on the line, and when you're looking at potentially
Speaker 1: a twenty million dollar payout or more for the winner,
Speaker 1: does the psychology of the game change, Well, it like
Speaker 1: changes a bit in two ways. Where if you're playing
Speaker 1: a big field of players, you're not really playing against
Speaker 1: the same people all the time. Where if you're playing
Speaker 1: these events, you're playing against the same people all the time.
Speaker 1: So your strategy potentially could be a style that you
Speaker 1: think works well against the style that everybody else is playing.
Speaker 1: And then of course, at the highest stakes, I mean
Speaker 1: you need to look for any type of advantage you
Speaker 1: kind of can. Where I'll even walk into a room
Speaker 1: and feel how all the people are feeling, and the
Speaker 1: people maybe who aren't having a good day, aren't very
Speaker 1: confident that day, Like that's who you really want to
Speaker 1: go after, aren't gonna be thinking, is clear, And the
Speaker 1: guys who come in just like they had enough sleep,
Speaker 1: they've been winning recently. It's like, okay, stay away from
Speaker 1: these guys. Where I would always see it as like
Speaker 1: a jungle. Do you want to go against like the
Speaker 1: other do you really want to hunt against other strongest animals,
Speaker 1: or do you want to go against like the weakest
Speaker 1: animals and like try to play cautious in the other senses.
Speaker 1: So when the ultra high stakes sort of opponent selection
Speaker 1: is a more important facet of the game for me,
Speaker 1: at least, I don't think for most I don't think
Speaker 1: most people really think about it. I think they've geared
Speaker 1: themselves more on a math based g t O style
Speaker 1: perfect strategy. It's like game theory optimal. So this is
Speaker 1: what everybody says that they're playing this game theory optimal
Speaker 1: strategy and studying charts and looking at numbers, which works
Speaker 1: for sure. But the thing is, I just feel like
Speaker 1: it doesn't work as well as everybody really thinks because
Speaker 1: you would need to input so many different variations of
Speaker 1: how people play to actually figure out what the real
Speaker 1: chart is. So like, for instance, if you're studying a
Speaker 1: chart that says this is the best style to play,
Speaker 1: it's only the best style to play versus the style
Speaker 1: that the numbers are input up against. So let's say
Speaker 1: now another person is playing a completely different style and
Speaker 1: you're playing the same g t O that you think
Speaker 1: is unexploitable and perfect. Yeah, that may be true, but
Speaker 1: you're also going to be playing completely incorrect in some
Speaker 1: scenarios where you're just like not adjusting what your own
Speaker 1: chart should be based on what their range actually is.
Speaker 1: Right Intuitively, if you think about like the old days
Speaker 1: and those uh, those World Series events with thousands of players,
Speaker 1: many of whom sort of came up through online, it's
Speaker 1: probably somewhat easy to play, at least in the early rounds,
Speaker 1: the sort of g t O style and which everyone
Speaker 1: is sort of this generic online player. I imagine in
Speaker 1: a tournament with just fifty people and you can sort
Speaker 1: of identify them all. You can't just take it for
Speaker 1: granted that there's going to be this sort of generic
Speaker 1: optimal play, and that probably I guess what you're saying
Speaker 1: is it requires someone to really shift gears and to
Speaker 1: actually change their style of play because they're just so few, uh,
Speaker 1: such a variation in what you're going to be up against. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because I mean deep in a tournament, when you're playing
Speaker 1: for so much, it's tough to really just blank out
Speaker 1: that you're not playing for so much and that it's
Speaker 1: a normal day, Like that's the most important thing. When
Speaker 1: I was in the Triton million dollar buy in. I
Speaker 1: kept honestly having to tell myself, hey, look it's a
Speaker 1: normal day, and not even think it's like a normal day.
Speaker 1: You have to tell yourself trick yourself in whatever way.
Speaker 1: How do you do that? How do you trick yourself?
Speaker 1: What's your I mean like breathing and kind of just
Speaker 1: trying to get myself in my own zone and my
Speaker 1: own space where I don't care about anything else that's
Speaker 1: going on. Which when you're getting messages from every single
Speaker 1: person that you know, good luck, and they're all watching
Speaker 1: and you have this big production, shouldn't you turn off
Speaker 1: your phone? Yeah, I mean kind of, I guess. But
Speaker 1: also I'm writing like my mom and grandma like to
Speaker 1: go and watch it, and some friends like to make
Speaker 1: sure that they could watch it. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that really. I mean, when you wake up, I was
Speaker 1: barely sleeping and barely eating. Anyway, I got myself into
Speaker 1: some type of trance I would say, where I didn't
Speaker 1: really care. I gambled way too much than any like
Speaker 1: any feasible person would want to gamble in one tournament,
Speaker 1: especially where like the number of guys would say that
Speaker 1: you maybe make ten or maybe the biggest winner makes
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty percent or something. I just, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. When the tournament got announced, I just felt
Speaker 1: like it was a perfect tournament for me, with half
Speaker 1: business men and half pros, and for like the maybe
Speaker 1: four months before, I kind of told myself that this
Speaker 1: is a tournament for me and just prepared myself in
Speaker 1: every way. Let's say my dad would do research, and
Speaker 1: my dad and girlfriend would do research and find me
Speaker 1: like brain pills that I should take to keep like
Speaker 1: optimal have changed my diet completely. Just go and take
Speaker 1: a road trip, turn my phone off for a bit.
Speaker 1: Just I think the most important thing is if you're
Speaker 1: gambling for huge amounts, are in a spot where you're
Speaker 1: taking huge risks, So trading is the same. You have
Speaker 1: to feel your best and your most relaxed, and whatever
Speaker 1: makes you feel your best and most relaxed is exactly
Speaker 1: what you should do. Because you're gonna make big gambles
Speaker 1: or big moves not I mean, it's always a gamble,
Speaker 1: even if it's a great decision. In trading and poker,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to just feel good no matter what
Speaker 1: and be able to take a hit no matter what.
Speaker 1: Let's go back. Mentioned in the intro that Tracy, it's
Speaker 1: really sad that she's not here because although she's normally
Speaker 1: a little cool on the poker episode, you have a
Speaker 1: background that she was really interested in when she saw
Speaker 1: and that is you started prior to playing poker as
Speaker 1: you played the card game Magic, the Gathering, and you're
Speaker 1: pro at that, right. I mean, it's considered what explained
Speaker 1: to people who haven't played that, the sort of essence
Speaker 1: of that card game, which is its own cultural phenomenon,
Speaker 1: and the crossover skills that you had with that game
Speaker 1: that lent themselves to the poker table. Yeah, so Magic
Speaker 1: was like a great game. I played mostly from twelve.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if it was twelve or thirteen that
Speaker 1: I started playing until I turned sixty and there was
Speaker 1: a junior super series who was called So It's all
Speaker 1: people fifteen and under. So actually I traveled just from
Speaker 1: like Long Beach I was living in. I would travel
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn and New York City and New Jersey and
Speaker 1: sometimes Washington, d C. Even my mom would take me
Speaker 1: to and baltim More and fly to Florida even and
Speaker 1: San Diego just for these magic events where it's a car.
Speaker 1: It's like a strategy card game. I would say it's
Speaker 1: like chess with cards, but a lot of interchangeable factors
Speaker 1: and more luck than chess instead of because it's hard
Speaker 1: to really compare it to anything, because the other comparison
Speaker 1: is to like a Pokemon or a Yugo, where it's
Speaker 1: not really the same at all. There's not much strategy,
Speaker 1: or there's some strategy in these games, but way more
Speaker 1: strategy in Magic, where the most important thing I think
Speaker 1: that it did was it taught me to just play
Speaker 1: a game just to have in my head just to win,
Speaker 1: to make the best decision, and have your goal just
Speaker 1: to serve, to accumulate to win, not care about anything
Speaker 1: else where I had already had my mind set after
Speaker 1: playing Magic, once I started playing poker, where I was
Speaker 1: pretty much desensitized with the money and just to win,
Speaker 1: because intuitively everyone plays games to win. So what do
Speaker 1: you mean specifically when you say get yourself in a
Speaker 1: mindset just to win it? Well, poker, when you get
Speaker 1: into your first spots where you're playing big pots or
Speaker 1: in tournaments where the pride where the page jumps are
Speaker 1: very big page jumps, you find yourself in uh, in
Speaker 1: a situation you've never seen before. And even if it's
Speaker 1: a situation that you've seen before, they're gonna be times
Speaker 1: in life when you are doing not doing as well,
Speaker 1: and when you're deep in a tournament you see these
Speaker 1: big amounts of money up top. If you think about
Speaker 1: the money that you're playing for, you're putting yourself at
Speaker 1: a disadvantage if you're playing against someone like me. Because
Speaker 1: I'm trying to scout exactly that, I'm trying to see
Speaker 1: the people who it feels like they are playing less
Speaker 1: hands and they're thinking more about the money and just
Speaker 1: going up in page jumps, because it's very easy to
Speaker 1: push these guys off their hands with big bets on
Speaker 1: the river. These when you're talking about the people you're spotting,
Speaker 1: are these people who are saying trying to backdoor themselves
Speaker 1: into the money just by surviving. They see when the
Speaker 1: cutoff is going to be, They know how many more
Speaker 1: players need to be eliminated before it's money, And so
Speaker 1: in other words, the big opportunities are exploiting those people
Speaker 1: who get anxious around the bubble. Is that sort of
Speaker 1: what you're saying around the bubble, And also when the
Speaker 1: page jumps become large amounts of money at final tables
Speaker 1: and high roller events. Also with magic are the tournament
Speaker 1: structure the same way is that, Well, the different thing
Speaker 1: is in poker you would just have chips and accumulate
Speaker 1: chips and magic, you would play one on one rounds
Speaker 1: versus people, and then at the end of however many
Speaker 1: rounds are, it would formulate into a top eight like
Speaker 1: a playoff pretty much. Two questions. So, first, when did
Speaker 1: you realize playing magic? I assumed you maybe just started
Speaker 1: playing against friends like most people did, that you were
Speaker 1: like better than them. What would you attribute like, what
Speaker 1: did you have even when you were just sort of
Speaker 1: an amateur just picking it up that you would say
Speaker 1: like made the difference between you versus them. So it
Speaker 1: was very random where I got I got introduced to
Speaker 1: magic at a family picnic where one of my cousins
Speaker 1: brought some magic starter decks and I asked my mom,
Speaker 1: I guess at the picnic, hey, I wanted to uh
Speaker 1: get these cards, And I think it was because I
Speaker 1: had already um connection to cards where before I could
Speaker 1: read my mom and dad. They said that they would
Speaker 1: show me seventy five different baseball cards and I knew
Speaker 1: the name and position of all the people before I
Speaker 1: could read. So one of the things for sure that
Speaker 1: it has helped me in magic and in pokers that
Speaker 1: I have a phenomenal memory, better than I've ever seen
Speaker 1: anyone else have. Where I've heard other people having photographic memories,
Speaker 1: I can pretty much see like a video replaying in
Speaker 1: my head, where not only do I remember hands that
Speaker 1: I play against people or tendencies that they have, I
Speaker 1: remember even who's at the table and saw these type
Speaker 1: of hands. So the way that they think of out me.
Speaker 1: So in magic I got very good, I would say,
Speaker 1: just because I pretty much go all in with anything
Speaker 1: that I'm interested in. So all I would really think
Speaker 1: about was making different at school. I remember, I would
Speaker 1: just be writing different deck lists that I would be
Speaker 1: making in class, not really care about all in. You
Speaker 1: mean in your life, like you devoted yourself to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I mean poker. I started playing poker mostly at seventeen,
Speaker 1: and from seventeen to twenty nine, I pretty much played
Speaker 1: every waking hour I had. Uh, even when I would
Speaker 1: travel around to other countries, I wouldn't do anything else
Speaker 1: other than play poker. Didn't take a single vacation. Literally
Speaker 1: I had only one focus where even friends of mine
Speaker 1: or one friend was telling my mom when we were
Speaker 1: having lunch that at eighteen years old, I would say
Speaker 1: that I was going to be the best poker player
Speaker 1: in the world. And one thing that I say is
Speaker 1: that I just wanted it more than everybody else. I
Speaker 1: just put my whole life into it. When I was
Speaker 1: winning a lot, I played all day every day. When
Speaker 1: I was when I lost everything, I was playing all
Speaker 1: day every day. In the middle, I was playing all
Speaker 1: day every day. I would just wake up, go straight
Speaker 1: to a computer back in the online days, play online
Speaker 1: all day. How do you distinguish that between someone who's
Speaker 1: just a gambling at it. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who did that and then they lost everything, including
Speaker 1: like their family and their entire future. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's a tough line for sure, But it's like
Speaker 1: a skill that it takes a long time to build.
Speaker 1: So if you just go in and start gambling at
Speaker 1: high stakes in an early stage, when you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of money, it's very likely that you're gonna lose
Speaker 1: this money. So it's completely different Where I started with
Speaker 1: no money, and I would build it up and then
Speaker 1: lose it all. You would have to win and then lose,
Speaker 1: So you're feeling like the sense of winning and losing,
Speaker 1: and to be able to win, you're gonna need to
Speaker 1: put in a lot of work to be ahead of
Speaker 1: everybody else because a lot of other smart people who
Speaker 1: are playing cards, if you have money already, it's like
Speaker 1: it's a danger danger zone them pretty much, because you
Speaker 1: can play high stakes very easily. You can lose the house,
Speaker 1: you can lose whatever amount of money, just like casinos.
Speaker 1: I mean I have friends who say that they're friends
Speaker 1: have lost two hundred million, five hundred million US like
Speaker 1: whole savings in casinos in Asia. So yeah, it's very depressing.
Speaker 1: So this is, uh, this actually gets to an aspect
Speaker 1: of poker, professional poker that's highly relevant to the investing audience.
Speaker 1: And this is the concept of risk management and bank
Speaker 1: roll management. And you talked about how you would go
Speaker 1: up and then you would lose it all and then
Speaker 1: go up some more and then lose it all. What
Speaker 1: have you learned over time about bank roll management so
Speaker 1: that you don't lose it all? Because ultimately, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're able to build back up, but from the you know,
Speaker 1: the investing game and trading offense. If you lose it all,
Speaker 1: you're just out of the game and that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I tell everybody when and when I see
Speaker 1: someone young and it's someone that I like, I try
Speaker 1: to always tell them, hey, like, just you have to
Speaker 1: protect your money because it's like your most valuable asset.
Speaker 1: When you have money, it's very easy to build on
Speaker 1: the money if you're making good decisions, if you're a
Speaker 1: smart person, but it's very hard to turn no money
Speaker 1: into a lot of money where people couldn't even be
Speaker 1: and have done the same situation that I've done, where
Speaker 1: most of the time, if you lose all the money
Speaker 1: that you have, you're just out of business. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you going to do anything else? I just
Speaker 1: did a lot of business with a lot of people
Speaker 1: where I would stake them or I would help them
Speaker 1: out and give them loans before or they would buy
Speaker 1: pieces of me. And since my word was always hundred
Speaker 1: percent and I made a lot of money for people,
Speaker 1: I would be able to get loans that were unheard
Speaker 1: of pretty much where there were points at twenty two
Speaker 1: years old where I owed friends half a million dollars
Speaker 1: with I mean for the real world with no credit,
Speaker 1: no assets, and somehow able to borrow half a million
Speaker 1: bucks and not have people even really ask you for
Speaker 1: it is pretty unheard of. Before we move on, I
Speaker 1: have to ask you a question, and at any level
Speaker 1: these staking arrangements, how formalized are they? So if I
Speaker 1: were to stake you and one of these big tournaments,
Speaker 1: would we like sign a whole contract and everything so
Speaker 1: that there's no ambiguity or is it just like trust?
Speaker 1: And I mean it's mostly just trust and respect, except
Speaker 1: if I mean, if you're doing a big deal, maybe
Speaker 1: someone will have you sign a contract, or if you're
Speaker 1: doing business with someone who's a business man where they're
Speaker 1: used to always signing contracts for any type of deal
Speaker 1: that they have. Lots of poker deals have just been
Speaker 1: from just trust, and I mean that's huge mistake. But
Speaker 1: it all comes down to a lot of when you're
Speaker 1: a kid and you start making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: of course you're gonna make bad financial decisions. Where I
Speaker 1: was staking a lot of my friends, a lot of
Speaker 1: people that you thought were your friends and wouldn't sign
Speaker 1: a contract and in the end of the day they
Speaker 1: would just lie straight to your face. About things to you.
Speaker 1: So you've made in tournament poker or something like fifty
Speaker 1: five million dollars. Obviously you have a lifestyle and travel
Speaker 1: to supporting all that. Do you feel at this point
Speaker 1: that there's like, there's no way you could ever go
Speaker 1: bust again? I mean, it's funny though, because going into
Speaker 1: this year, I had let's say, twenty five million in
Speaker 1: cash is and I had a negative bank roll already.
Speaker 1: So you did, You're you're in debt even with yeah,
Speaker 1: because I had actually my first losing year ever last year.
Speaker 1: So let's say on staking arrangement, I think I was
Speaker 1: down like three point five million going into this year
Speaker 1: and owed maybe another million bucks on the side from that,
Speaker 1: and actually I wound up in a in a spot
Speaker 1: where I think most people would have taken the easier route,
Speaker 1: where at the start of this year, the guy who
Speaker 1: stakes me, he's very wealthy businessman and we became good friends,
Speaker 1: pretty much tells me, Hey, the three point five that
Speaker 1: you're down, I think it's an insurmountable amount of money.
Speaker 1: I'm fine, we should just we can wipe it away
Speaker 1: and start the number at zero. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: I've been in unfair business deal before where I got
Speaker 1: screwed over completely and I've always been completely fair. But
Speaker 1: actually it really made me think in every deal that
Speaker 1: I make with anyone, I always wanted to think on
Speaker 1: both sides and make sure that it's fair, that I'm
Speaker 1: not like using leverage or taking advantage of anyone, which
Speaker 1: like other people will do so as soon as he
Speaker 1: tells me this, the thing is, if I take this,
Speaker 1: it means I took a completely unfair deal. Like it's
Speaker 1: easy to justify that the money doesn't matter to them
Speaker 1: or so, but for me, it's more about morals where
Speaker 1: I just don't do it all. I never give up
Speaker 1: when things are bad. Actually I told him, I said, hey, look,
Speaker 1: don't worry, I'm not going to do this, but let's
Speaker 1: just continue at how it is, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be number one in the world again this year. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. So wait, just going into this
Speaker 1: starting into this year, before this, when was the twenty
Speaker 1: mill and dollar cash by the way, it was in
Speaker 1: the beginning of August. Okay, so up until up until that,
Speaker 1: even I won a lot, Like from January to August
Speaker 1: of two thousand nineteen, I had one a lot and
Speaker 1: already cleared that number. But even still going into twenty nine,
Speaker 1: technically you're like busted. Well, I mean worse than busted.
Speaker 1: Like I had to pay. I had to pay my
Speaker 1: next three and a half mill give or take a
Speaker 1: few hundred thousand in winnings from poker, and I owed
Speaker 1: money on the side too, I was, So I was
Speaker 1: way worse. I guess you could say worse or better
Speaker 1: because at the same sense, even if I'm down three
Speaker 1: and a half million, I get to play large buying tournaments.
Speaker 1: If my mindsets good and I get back to winning ways,
Speaker 1: I can win a big tournament for five million and
Speaker 1: have money. Well, at that point, I've almost had money
Speaker 1: again since I owed a million on the side. So
Speaker 1: I mean no offense if someone's listening to this for
Speaker 1: advice of like bankroll management. I mean, obviously your life
Speaker 1: is in trajectory, has been extraordinary, But it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like you couldn't get back there again. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: mean I was. But it sounds like you really like
Speaker 1: the massive swings. Is that fair to say it was? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I didn't mind the massive swings at all, because were
Speaker 1: you stressed out? I mean, only three and a half
Speaker 1: million dollars and not having anything. No Actually, to be honest,
Speaker 1: to start this year, I felt like amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: the thing is, it's all relative. So as long as
Speaker 1: I can borrow money on like the number that I
Speaker 1: owe on the side to live whatever lifestyle that makes
Speaker 1: you happy, and that's like an agreed upon thing and
Speaker 1: no problem, then life is still fine. You don't necessary see,
Speaker 1: it's all about what you create a stress in your head.
Speaker 1: I feel like where you can just eliminate things completely
Speaker 1: and just take it like it's breakfast, where it destroys
Speaker 1: other people, you just I mean I accept whatever wherever
Speaker 1: I'm at and just kind of have have trained myself
Speaker 1: to have the mindset that you can only you can't
Speaker 1: change the path. You can only make good decisions in
Speaker 1: the present moment, and sometimes, like a big mistake, it
Speaker 1: will take a long time to get you back to
Speaker 1: where you want to be. It's all about changing your
Speaker 1: mindset to where you maybe we're playing huge stakes before
Speaker 1: a few months ago, and now you have to make
Speaker 1: a few hundred bucks a day just to like come
Speaker 1: back where. I mean, I've been in smaller ones where
Speaker 1: I had let's say, three million dollars and six months
Speaker 1: later I had no money and my friends half a
Speaker 1: million dollars. And at that stage you can't play high
Speaker 1: stakes anymore. You have to train your brain that you
Speaker 1: have to try to make five hundred bucks a day
Speaker 1: and then try to raise it a little, a little
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger, just to get yourself back to knock
Speaker 1: where you were, just to build yourself back to comfortable
Speaker 1: or more comfortable, and just take small winds. So do
Speaker 1: you ever think about just stopping. I mean, I assume
Speaker 1: you're doing you have several million. Now, after you're a
Speaker 1: huge win, you could just like or like play for fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing. To get so good at anything,
Speaker 1: you have to love it also, So I mean, every
Speaker 1: every athlete who's the best at what they do, they
Speaker 1: all love it. Because you have to play all day
Speaker 1: every day. You have to make to be great at
Speaker 1: anything that a lot of other people want to be
Speaker 1: great at, you just have to want it more than
Speaker 1: they do. I mean, you could say that there's some
Speaker 1: like natural born talent and everything. There are reasons that
Speaker 1: make me good at poker that maybe the ultra high
Speaker 1: stakes make what used to be considered high stakes seem
Speaker 1: boring too, Like I'm thinking about like like beer drinkers
Speaker 1: who drink really high alcohol content I p s. And
Speaker 1: then they can't go back to drinking normal beers because
Speaker 1: they can't even taste it. Just the thought of buying
Speaker 1: into a ten thousand dollar tournament just bore you at
Speaker 1: this point, even and even I start to think about
Speaker 1: like it doesn't really don't. Yeah, well, I mean I
Speaker 1: played so much anyway, so I was transitioning more to
Speaker 1: playing less and going to places that I want to play,
Speaker 1: and not just going to let's say, uh Florida, for instance,
Speaker 1: they have nice tournaments where the buyings thirty, ten thousand,
Speaker 1: fifty thousand. I don't really have any interest ever to
Speaker 1: go there again and play. What about cash games against
Speaker 1: high rollers? Do you play that? Because I spent so
Speaker 1: much time playing tournaments, I would just want to rest
Speaker 1: my brain for for a time. Where some people play
Speaker 1: all night tournaments cash games, For me, I feel my
Speaker 1: sleep is so important actually, so I try to always
Speaker 1: make sure unless if I'm like for the million, I
Speaker 1: was very antsy, so I didn't sleep much, maybe five
Speaker 1: six hours, but usually I'll try to get eight or
Speaker 1: nine hours. Make sure I have rest and just feel
Speaker 1: good because I feel like it's a long day of
Speaker 1: of a mental battle where the way that you're going
Speaker 1: to think and do your best is if your body
Speaker 1: is not just your mind. Body and mind is most
Speaker 1: prepared just to sit there and feel good and play good.
Speaker 1: So what's your next goal? Like, what do you what
Speaker 1: are you trying to accomplish? Now that's tough. I think
Speaker 1: my next goal is actually to be healthier and try
Speaker 1: to have a healthier lifestyle, because I mean, hitting number
Speaker 1: one all time winner, yeah, it makes you Poker is
Speaker 1: like okay, well, I mean I did what I set
Speaker 1: out and said that I was going to do for
Speaker 1: so long. It's even it takes a little time even
Speaker 1: to accept it in your head that that's reality, because
Speaker 1: so much of poker is kind of convincing yourself like
Speaker 1: something and getting into a mindset where nothing really matters
Speaker 1: and you're so focused on exactly what you're focused on,
Speaker 1: where when I was younger, I would say that plays
Speaker 1: a negative effect where you don't really think about you
Speaker 1: can't really think about many things that are going on
Speaker 1: because you're so focused on one thing that everything else
Speaker 1: takes a hit. Pretty much on that note. I think
Speaker 1: that's a good place to stop. Bryn Kenny, the number
Speaker 1: one earningist poker player of all time on the Hendon
Speaker 1: Mob database. Thank you very much for joining us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great being here. Nice talking to you. Yeah, that was great.
Speaker 1: Thank you much. Well, I'm sad that Tracy wasn't here,
Speaker 1: but I can't wait till she hears uh this episode.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't really have any extra thoughts. You
Speaker 1: heard it all there, so I'll just sign off. This
Speaker 1: has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Wisn'tal. You could follow me on Twitter and you
Speaker 1: should follow Tracy at Tracy Alloway. Check out Bryan on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Bryan Kenny, and be sure to follow our
Speaker 1: producer on Twitter, Laura Carlson. She's out Laura. I'm Carlson,
Speaker 1: as well as today's guest producer tofor for has who
Speaker 1: have filtered today, He's at for has T, and be
Speaker 1: sure to follow all of Bloomberg's podcasts on Twitter at
Speaker 1: the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening.