Daniel Negreanu: Poker - Lex Fridman 知识图谱

Lex Fridman (01:09.880)

it might be something someone says, right?

Daniel Negreanu (01:11.940)

You know, you ask them a question and they say,

Lex Fridman (01:13.780)

oh, you know, you shouldn't call me here, you should.

Lex Fridman (01:15.980)

So there's the verbal tells.

Lex Fridman (01:17.440)

There's also the more, you know, subconscious stuff,

Lex Fridman (01:20.140)

body posture, right?

Lex Fridman (01:21.860)

The eyes, the throat, the pulse,

Daniel Negreanu (01:24.820)

various things that are, you know, less controllable.

Lex Fridman (01:27.900)

I find I use a combination of both

Daniel Negreanu (01:30.040)

to try to gain information,

Lex Fridman (01:31.580)

but generally when I have somebody more comfortable,

Daniel Negreanu (01:34.840)

they give off more.

Lex Fridman (01:36.360)

Like everyone has a different approach.

Daniel Negreanu (01:37.700)

Phil Ivey likes to intimidate.

Lex Fridman (01:39.540)

I go the other way.

Daniel Negreanu (01:40.420)

I want my opponents to be relaxed

Lex Fridman (01:42.700)

so that they'll give me more in that regard.

Lex Fridman (01:44.580)

So Phil Ivey likes to perturb the system,

Lex Fridman (01:47.260)

like mess with it to see what comes out.

Daniel Negreanu (01:50.500)

I think Phil has an aura about him

Lex Fridman (01:52.460)

where he wants you to know that he's watching you,

Daniel Negreanu (01:55.820)

be afraid, be uncomfortable,

Lex Fridman (01:58.020)

because when you're uncomfortable, I got you, right?

Lex Fridman (02:00.780)

And that's sort of his shtick where he, you know,

Lex Fridman (02:03.100)

and people do, like when you sit at a table with Phil Ivey,

Daniel Negreanu (02:05.700)

it's intimidating.

Lex Fridman (02:06.540)

He likes to rule by fear

Lex Fridman (02:07.780)

and you like to rule by, what is it, love?

Lex Fridman (02:10.040)

That's a really good way to put it.

Daniel Negreanu (02:11.220)

I never had anyone put it like that,

Lex Fridman (02:12.740)

but it makes a lot of sense.

Daniel Negreanu (02:13.640)

Yeah, you know, fear Phil Ivey,

Lex Fridman (02:15.500)

and then with me, it's fine, don't worry,

Daniel Negreanu (02:17.220)

I'll take your money, but you're gonna enjoy it.

Lex Fridman (02:18.940)

It's great.

Lex Fridman (02:19.820)

So that's what the talking at the table is about,

Lex Fridman (02:21.820)

is getting to be relaxed and get some of that gray area

Daniel Negreanu (02:26.820)

between the conscious and the subconscious

Lex Fridman (02:28.420)

to reveal something.

Daniel Negreanu (02:29.380)

Yeah, there's that too, and also just, you know,

Lex Fridman (02:31.140)

and this is just part of who I am anyway,

Daniel Negreanu (02:32.680)

like I like to talk to people,

Lex Fridman (02:34.060)

but one of the byproducts is the more I know about you,

Daniel Negreanu (02:36.540)

the more I likely know about how you think

Lex Fridman (02:38.280)

about different situations, right?

Lex Fridman (02:39.720)

So what do you do for a living?

Lex Fridman (02:40.580)

Oh, I'm a lawyer, I defend criminals.

Daniel Negreanu (02:42.980)

Okay, so this guy probably spends a lot of his time

Lex Fridman (02:45.540)

twisting the truth, trying to find, you know,

Lex Fridman (02:47.820)

and then, so then, you know, you already have a mindset

Lex Fridman (02:50.340)

of like, this guy might be more likely to bluff

Daniel Negreanu (02:52.020)

or he's probably comfortable doing that.

Lex Fridman (02:53.620)

Very subtle things like that.

Lex Fridman (02:55.300)

And you start to pick up cues on what nervousness looks like

Lex Fridman (03:00.040)

for this person, what the nervousness communicates,

Daniel Negreanu (03:02.780)

all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (03:03.620)

So we're talking about physical tells here.

Daniel Negreanu (03:05.620)

Yeah, physical tells is a secondary thing.

Lex Fridman (03:07.460)

I was more specific like player profiling, right?

Lex Fridman (03:10.500)

And sort of understanding the type of mind

Lex Fridman (03:12.180)

that I'm dealing with, right?

Lex Fridman (03:14.300)

So again, somebody who's a lawyer is used to trying,

Lex Fridman (03:17.900)

is fine with being deceptive as part of a game, right?

Daniel Negreanu (03:21.420)

Whereas maybe somebody who's a Sunday school teacher

Lex Fridman (03:23.800)

and, you know, they don't feel comfortable,

Lex Fridman (03:25.820)

maybe they think bluffing might be dishonest, right?

Lex Fridman (03:28.540)

So they're less likely to try some shenanigans against you.

Daniel Negreanu (03:31.540)

So, and then the other thing too is,

Lex Fridman (03:33.340)

what type of person is this in terms of their, you know,

Lex Fridman (03:38.740)

like view on life, right?

Lex Fridman (03:40.060)

Are they positive?

Lex Fridman (03:40.900)

Do they feel like things go their way or they're not, right?

Lex Fridman (03:44.040)

There's those people that always, well, of course I lost,

Daniel Negreanu (03:46.420)

I always lose with this hand.

Lex Fridman (03:47.980)

And those types of people you can manipulate

Daniel Negreanu (03:50.220)

because when a card comes,

Lex Fridman (03:52.020)

that you don't have them beat, right?

Lex Fridman (03:54.700)

But you can pretend because they'll believe it.

Lex Fridman (03:56.540)

Like, of course you beat me.

Lex Fridman (03:57.580)

So you bet all your chips against them,

Lex Fridman (03:59.220)

knowing that you can scare them

Daniel Negreanu (04:00.600)

because they already feel like they're gonna lose.

Lex Fridman (04:03.780)

The inherent, like the cynicism.

Daniel Negreanu (04:05.980)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (04:06.820)

Cynicism is easier to play against

Daniel Negreanu (04:08.360)

because you can convince them that their cards suck.

Lex Fridman (04:10.740)

Yeah, when somebody believes that they're a loser

Lex Fridman (04:12.660)

or they're unlucky, right?

Lex Fridman (04:14.140)

And that bad things happen to them always

Lex Fridman (04:16.100)

and they never catch a break.

Lex Fridman (04:17.540)

Well, you know, you can just help them make it true.

Lex Fridman (04:21.980)

What do you think about the rounders Teddy KGB

Lex Fridman (04:24.900)

when he does the Oreo tell?

Lex Fridman (04:26.980)

Do players at the high level communicate that kind of stuff?

Lex Fridman (04:30.220)

Do you think it's realistic to be able to have a tell

Lex Fridman (04:31.940)

like this that's partially subconscious?

Lex Fridman (04:34.460)

So first of all, I love Brian Koppelman who made the film.

Lex Fridman (04:37.420)

And I think what they were going for

Lex Fridman (04:39.380)

is something obvious to the general public, right?

Daniel Negreanu (04:41.900)

Like, okay, it's very clear, you know, he eats the cookie,

Lex Fridman (04:44.020)

he doesn't eat the cookie and it means one or the other.

Daniel Negreanu (04:46.060)

At the highest levels, something that, you know, blatant,

Lex Fridman (04:50.060)

you're not gonna find.

Daniel Negreanu (04:51.000)

You're gonna find a lot more subtle things,

Lex Fridman (04:52.540)

maybe with posture or timing or, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (04:55.420)

different things like that.

Lex Fridman (04:56.380)

But at the lower levels, you know, you might see some,

Daniel Negreanu (05:00.340)

you might see, you know, with a lot of people

Lex Fridman (05:02.340)

when they're in a hand and they've bet,

Daniel Negreanu (05:03.940)

whether they drink water in the hand

Lex Fridman (05:06.100)

is going to tell you something generally speaking.

Daniel Negreanu (05:08.220)

It's such an intimate part of the human experience

Lex Fridman (05:09.980)

that I feel like if you have food,

Daniel Negreanu (05:11.340)

you're gonna reveal something about yourself

Lex Fridman (05:13.160)

through the way you eat.

Daniel Negreanu (05:14.340)

I feel like that's a dangerous thing

Lex Fridman (05:15.620)

to have at the table.

Daniel Negreanu (05:16.460)

Well, the thing is, generally speaking,

Lex Fridman (05:18.260)

people don't eat food in the middle of a hand.

Daniel Negreanu (05:20.120)

Like they're not gonna bet and then just like grab a burger.

Lex Fridman (05:23.100)

What they will do though is, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (05:24.620)

they bet and it's up to you and then they're,

Lex Fridman (05:26.720)

whether they're, you know, uncomfortable

Daniel Negreanu (05:28.280)

or they do it unconsciously,

Lex Fridman (05:29.240)

they just want to do something

Daniel Negreanu (05:30.980)

to make themselves look relaxed or whatever.

Lex Fridman (05:32.820)

And then, you know, they grab a water

Daniel Negreanu (05:34.420)

where they don't really need it in that moment,

Lex Fridman (05:35.900)

but they're trying to take your mind off of the situation.

Lex Fridman (05:39.180)

So they, in the movie, wanted to show a simplistic version

Lex Fridman (05:43.660)

of something that does happen,

Daniel Negreanu (05:45.180)

something that's visually sort of clear.

Lex Fridman (05:48.340)

Yeah, because I think one of the things Rounders got right

Lex Fridman (05:50.760)

is that it's a poker movie, right?

Lex Fridman (05:52.340)

But you don't have to be great at poker

Daniel Negreanu (05:54.100)

or really understand poker to enjoy the movie.

Lex Fridman (05:56.140)

And that, you know, Oreo cookie tale,

Daniel Negreanu (05:58.220)

like everyone gets that.

Lex Fridman (05:59.820)

They're like, okay, that's simple.

Daniel Negreanu (06:01.180)

If he would have went with something more subtle,

Lex Fridman (06:03.180)

you know, like licking your lips or looking to the right,

Daniel Negreanu (06:06.600)

or I think it might've been lost on the audience.

Lex Fridman (06:09.020)

And they didn't actually explicitly say

Daniel Negreanu (06:12.120)

that that was a tell, I don't think.

Lex Fridman (06:14.940)

I thought they did everything to let you know, right?

Daniel Negreanu (06:17.700)

With the music and slow motion and he's staring at it

Lex Fridman (06:21.340)

and he's like, aha.

Daniel Negreanu (06:22.620)

Yeah, but they didn't actually say,

Lex Fridman (06:25.060)

you know, this is an obvious tell,

Daniel Negreanu (06:26.620)

like Matt Damon's character didn't talk.

Lex Fridman (06:28.500)

At the very end of it, you know,

Lex Fridman (06:29.940)

after he says, how the fuck did you lay that down?

Lex Fridman (06:33.500)

The monster, right?

Lex Fridman (06:34.620)

And he's like, he's like, you're not hungry?

Lex Fridman (06:37.900)

Not hungry, KGB?

Daniel Negreanu (06:38.740)

He's like, I keep on, but you, you know,

Lex Fridman (06:40.300)

so he sort of references it and then he takes the cookies.

Daniel Negreanu (06:42.700)

He notices, he's like, ah, he got me.

Lex Fridman (06:44.500)

And he breaks the, you know, the rack of cookies.

Daniel Negreanu (06:46.140)

Well, probably if you had that kind of tell on him,

Lex Fridman (06:48.420)

you wouldn't, and Matt Damon's character would not reveal.

Daniel Negreanu (06:51.540)

Well, he says in the movie, he says,

Lex Fridman (06:53.420)

normally I wouldn't reveal a tell,

Lex Fridman (06:54.820)

but I don't have that much time.

Lex Fridman (06:56.620)

Like I've got to rattle him some way.

Lex Fridman (06:58.460)

So that was one way to do that.

Lex Fridman (07:00.620)

How hard is it to do that to, in a KGB accent,

Lex Fridman (07:05.900)

to lay down a monster in those situations?

Lex Fridman (07:08.340)

In general, how hard is it to lay down

Lex Fridman (07:10.820)

a really strong hand, just psychologically?

Lex Fridman (07:13.260)

Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's incredibly difficult

Daniel Negreanu (07:15.140)

for the vast majority of people.

Lex Fridman (07:16.680)

You know, part of what makes professionals

Daniel Negreanu (07:18.180)

really, really good is recognizing a situation

Lex Fridman (07:20.660)

that's very, very dangerous and they need to, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (07:22.860)

jump ship.

Lex Fridman (07:23.700)

Like what happens to a lot of players

Daniel Negreanu (07:25.260)

is you get married to a hand.

Lex Fridman (07:26.540)

Let's say you have pocket aces,

Lex Fridman (07:27.900)

which is the best possible hand, right?

Lex Fridman (07:29.780)

But the board runs out where it's seven, eight, nine,

Lex Fridman (07:32.900)

and then there's a jack and then there's a six.

Lex Fridman (07:34.700)

It's like, you have a great hand to start,

Lex Fridman (07:36.980)

but you don't anymore.

Lex Fridman (07:37.860)

So one of the difficult things for the average player is,

Daniel Negreanu (07:41.540)

you know, once they've put money in, cutting their losses

Lex Fridman (07:44.740)

and saying, okay, let's move on to the next hand.

Daniel Negreanu (07:46.680)

It's a very, very difficult thing for a lot of people.

Lex Fridman (07:48.180)

At every stage of like pre flop all the way through,

Daniel Negreanu (07:52.920)

be able to just make a decision at that moment.

Lex Fridman (07:55.700)

So yeah, essentially not being attached.

Daniel Negreanu (07:57.460)

Okay, I've already put in $40,000 in this pot

Lex Fridman (08:00.500)

and this guy's bet another 20.

Lex Fridman (08:02.260)

Well, I mean, I gotta get my 40 back, right?

Lex Fridman (08:04.340)

Except, you know, in some cases you have to reassess

Daniel Negreanu (08:07.660)

individually this situation and realize,

Lex Fridman (08:09.700)

all right, well, this is a bad investment.

Lex Fridman (08:11.100)

So I got to cut my losses.

Lex Fridman (08:12.460)

By the way, I should mention that you have,

Daniel Negreanu (08:15.460)

you have an incredible YouTube channel

Lex Fridman (08:17.020)

where you explain a lot of stuff.

Daniel Negreanu (08:18.380)

You do a podcast, you do a lot of really awesome stuff.

Lex Fridman (08:21.260)

My probably favorite thing that you've done

Daniel Negreanu (08:23.660)

is your masterclass that people should definitely check out,

Lex Fridman (08:27.340)

masterclass.com slash Lux.

Daniel Negreanu (08:29.860)

There you go.

Lex Fridman (08:31.500)

No, but it really is one of my favorite masterclass courses,

Lex Fridman (08:35.600)

but also just a great introduction overview of poker.

Lex Fridman (08:38.580)

It's great for people like me who are beginners essentially,

Lex Fridman (08:42.620)

but it's probably really good for intermediate people too.

Lex Fridman (08:44.420)

I mean, there's a lot of really good detail there.

Daniel Negreanu (08:46.460)

Anyway, what are hand ranges

Lex Fridman (08:48.860)

and how do you begin to estimate the range of hands

Lex Fridman (08:51.060)

that your opponents have?

Lex Fridman (08:52.260)

Yeah, so I actually did, speaking to YouTube,

Daniel Negreanu (08:54.140)

I did a video on specifically this.

Lex Fridman (08:55.500)

Yes.

Daniel Negreanu (08:56.340)

Getting familiar with Rangers and essentially,

Lex Fridman (08:57.500)

you know, back in my day, the old days,

Daniel Negreanu (08:58.780)

we didn't talk about poker that way.

Lex Fridman (09:00.380)

We're like, I think he's got this

Lex Fridman (09:01.540)

or I think he's got that, right?

Lex Fridman (09:03.980)

Nobody thought of like the range of hands

Daniel Negreanu (09:06.100)

a player can have.

Lex Fridman (09:06.940)

So I guess the best example is,

Daniel Negreanu (09:08.220)

imagine like all the potential hands

Lex Fridman (09:09.820)

as being a part of a grid, right?

Lex Fridman (09:11.820)

So the first player to act,

Lex Fridman (09:13.620)

they could have any one of those hands, right?

Lex Fridman (09:16.180)

Anyone randomly dealt, right?

Lex Fridman (09:18.100)

But let's say now that that player raised to $3,000.

Daniel Negreanu (09:22.140)

Okay, well you can eliminate now from this grid,

Lex Fridman (09:24.580)

a whole bunch of hands that this player can no longer have

Daniel Negreanu (09:27.200)

because if they had a two and a three,

Lex Fridman (09:28.580)

they wouldn't do that.

Lex Fridman (09:29.840)

So you can say, okay, he probably has a big pair.

Lex Fridman (09:32.500)

He has ace king.

Lex Fridman (09:33.700)

You know, you've narrowed the range of hands down, right?

Lex Fridman (09:36.740)

Now through every action on the flop,

Daniel Negreanu (09:38.980)

on the turn and on the river,

Lex Fridman (09:40.180)

based on the decisions they make,

Daniel Negreanu (09:41.820)

you narrow it down even further.

Lex Fridman (09:43.860)

So the range of hands is the whole,

Daniel Negreanu (09:46.940)

the entirety of all the possibilities

Lex Fridman (09:48.780)

that this player you believe could have.

Lex Fridman (09:50.260)

And sometimes they fool you

Lex Fridman (09:51.420)

or they have a hand that you don't expect them

Daniel Negreanu (09:53.220)

to have in their range.

Lex Fridman (09:54.280)

And you know, maybe a little bit unorthodox

Daniel Negreanu (09:56.980)

doing some things you don't expect to throw you off,

Lex Fridman (09:59.340)

but a range is essentially all the possibilities

Lex Fridman (10:01.940)

and it narrows as by the time,

Lex Fridman (10:03.420)

before the flop it's endless,

Daniel Negreanu (10:05.140)

player raises, okay, it's minimized.

Lex Fridman (10:07.260)

You know, a player bets the flop,

Daniel Negreanu (10:08.420)

okay, it's minimized further.

Lex Fridman (10:09.540)

And then by the river, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (10:11.020)

you can narrow down the entire range to, you know,

Lex Fridman (10:13.900)

just maybe even a few hands.

Daniel Negreanu (10:15.140)

Is it always shrinking or is there sort of,

Lex Fridman (10:17.860)

as you get surprised?

Daniel Negreanu (10:19.500)

I mean, it's always just an estimate.

Lex Fridman (10:21.420)

So does it ever expand based on sort of chaotic,

Lex Fridman (10:24.740)

unpredicted surprising behavior of the players?

Lex Fridman (10:29.060)

It really should never expand.

Lex Fridman (10:30.700)

The range of hands should always get smaller, right?

Lex Fridman (10:32.660)

Like again, we start with the full scope

Lex Fridman (10:35.180)

and then you should factor in like, okay,

Lex Fridman (10:37.020)

these are all the possible hands

Lex Fridman (10:37.980)

you can have on the flop now, right?

Lex Fridman (10:39.960)

We can't have new hands on the turn.

Lex Fridman (10:41.980)

And if you get to that point where you think,

Lex Fridman (10:44.260)

oh, well, maybe he has this hand,

Daniel Negreanu (10:45.940)

then you sort of misjudged his range prior.

Lex Fridman (10:49.040)

So you're not thinking clearly.

Daniel Negreanu (10:50.460)

It should always shrink from the full scope to, you know,

Lex Fridman (10:54.600)

hopefully just a couple.

Daniel Negreanu (10:55.640)

Well, in that video, you also talk about,

Lex Fridman (10:57.660)

it used to be that you would play your hand,

Lex Fridman (10:59.780)

but now you're playing a range

Lex Fridman (11:02.080)

that you're representing a range.

Daniel Negreanu (11:03.580)

You're not even just playing your hand.

Lex Fridman (11:05.660)

So what does it mean to represent a certain range?

Daniel Negreanu (11:08.740)

Yeah, so that's another big thing

Lex Fridman (11:09.940)

that's different about poker from, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (11:11.480)

my day to today is that back in our day,

Lex Fridman (11:13.860)

we would like put people on one hand.

Daniel Negreanu (11:15.540)

I'm like, you probably have king nine

Lex Fridman (11:17.300)

or you have jacks or something like that.

Daniel Negreanu (11:19.220)

Now people are cognizant of the idea

Lex Fridman (11:21.180)

that you could have an entire range of hands.

Lex Fridman (11:23.020)

So then you ask yourself in situations,

Lex Fridman (11:24.820)

all right, I know what I have,

Lex Fridman (11:26.620)

but what I could have in his mind

Lex Fridman (11:29.140)

or my opponent's mind is any one of these hands.

Lex Fridman (11:31.300)

What would I do with the entirety of these hands?

Lex Fridman (11:34.020)

And so a lot of people that are trying to play optimally,

Daniel Negreanu (11:36.260)

you know, game theory optimal,

Lex Fridman (11:37.700)

they think in terms of what their range of hands would do

Daniel Negreanu (11:41.260)

rather than their very specific hand.

Lex Fridman (11:43.760)

So is bluffing in that context

Lex Fridman (11:46.060)

essentially misrepresenting the range of hands that you have?

Lex Fridman (11:49.900)

No. Is that how you think about it?

Daniel Negreanu (11:51.160)

Not exactly, because so an optimal range,

Lex Fridman (11:53.220)

like if I bet the river,

Daniel Negreanu (11:54.620)

if I'm playing game theory optimal,

Lex Fridman (11:56.620)

a portion of my range is going to be, I have it.

Daniel Negreanu (11:59.040)

I got the best hand.

Lex Fridman (12:00.140)

And a portion of my range is going to be bluffs

Lex Fridman (12:01.860)

and they'll be balanced.

Lex Fridman (12:03.380)

So in theory, no matter what you do,

Daniel Negreanu (12:05.780)

no matter what you do, if you call or you fold,

Lex Fridman (12:08.120)

in theory, it's just, you're printing a zero, as we say,

Daniel Negreanu (12:11.620)

you're not gaining or losing any EV,

Lex Fridman (12:14.460)

if you were to do it that way.

Lex Fridman (12:15.380)

What's EV?

Lex Fridman (12:16.280)

EV is expected value, right?

Lex Fridman (12:18.140)

So every play that you make,

Lex Fridman (12:19.780)

you know, it either is going to in the long run,

Daniel Negreanu (12:21.960)

you know, make you some money,

Lex Fridman (12:22.980)

or it's just a losing play.

Lex Fridman (12:24.380)

And as a professional,

Lex Fridman (12:25.340)

you try to make the fewest amount of minus EV plays you can.

Lex Fridman (12:29.180)

And the only reason you would make these minus EV plays

Lex Fridman (12:31.860)

is potentially if you were trying to set up your opponent

Lex Fridman (12:34.140)

for something later, right?

Lex Fridman (12:35.740)

So I might make some minus EV plays, right?

Lex Fridman (12:38.660)

So that I can exploit you later, right?

Lex Fridman (12:40.500)

So you're building up an image,

Daniel Negreanu (12:42.720)

a player profile that's false in some way.

Lex Fridman (12:45.500)

Something that I'm going to,

Daniel Negreanu (12:46.340)

I'm going to plant seeds in your mind

Lex Fridman (12:48.000)

so that I can exploit them later.

Lex Fridman (12:49.560)

So for example, why would players like show a big bluff?

Lex Fridman (12:53.000)

Like what would be the reason for that?

Daniel Negreanu (12:54.760)

They show a big bluff

Lex Fridman (12:55.620)

so that you know that they're capable of it.

Lex Fridman (12:57.320)

But maybe in their mind,

Lex Fridman (12:58.260)

you're never going to do that again.

Lex Fridman (12:59.820)

But now they think, you know, he bluffed me last time.

Lex Fridman (13:02.460)

Maybe he's doing it again.

Lex Fridman (13:03.580)

But that's a, what we call like a level, a leveling war.

Lex Fridman (13:06.760)

Because it, you know, you can go back and forth

Daniel Negreanu (13:09.340)

with whether or not, okay, this guy might know that.

Lex Fridman (13:11.560)

Like he showed a bluff

Daniel Negreanu (13:12.460)

because he's never going to bluff me again.

Lex Fridman (13:14.320)

So that that's where it gets a little.

Lex Fridman (13:15.860)

So that's a little bit different.

Lex Fridman (13:17.940)

The, when we're talking about hand rangers,

Daniel Negreanu (13:19.620)

that's different than building up a mental model

Lex Fridman (13:23.200)

of what your opponents,

Lex Fridman (13:24.620)

what your opponents think of you

Lex Fridman (13:26.840)

and what your opponents think that you think of them

Lex Fridman (13:30.840)

and so on and so forth.

Lex Fridman (13:32.360)

Are you trying to construct those kinds of mental models?

Lex Fridman (13:35.760)

And is that separate from the hand rangers?

Lex Fridman (13:37.480)

They go hand in hand, right?

Lex Fridman (13:39.120)

So if any given, in a given situation, right?

Lex Fridman (13:41.360)

My range has this many value hands and this many bluffs.

Lex Fridman (13:45.160)

Okay?

Lex Fridman (13:46.000)

So in theory, if I want to be balanced, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (13:48.260)

this is my range and this is what it looks like.

Lex Fridman (13:49.920)

I'll bet this 50% of the time, bet this 50% of the time.

Daniel Negreanu (13:52.680)

However, if I know that you think that I bluff too much,

Lex Fridman (13:57.480)

right, then I'm not going to bluff as much.

Daniel Negreanu (13:59.100)

I'm going to start,

Lex Fridman (13:59.940)

instead of betting these hands that I would 50, 50,

Daniel Negreanu (14:02.140)

now what I'll do is I'll do like 70, 30,

Lex Fridman (14:04.640)

where I'm basically value betting

Daniel Negreanu (14:06.160)

most of the time against you, you know, or vice versa.

Lex Fridman (14:08.640)

If I know you always fold because you think I have it,

Daniel Negreanu (14:11.020)

I'm going to veer the other way.

Lex Fridman (14:12.360)

And instead of bluffing 50%,

Daniel Negreanu (14:13.520)

I'll bluff 70, 80% of the time

Lex Fridman (14:15.500)

to take advantage of your perception of me.

Lex Fridman (14:17.640)

So to be successful,

Lex Fridman (14:19.040)

do you have to construct a solid model of all the players

Lex Fridman (14:23.400)

in the game or can you ignore them?

Lex Fridman (14:26.600)

I think it's really important.

Daniel Negreanu (14:27.920)

Like when I play, I have in my phone,

Lex Fridman (14:29.880)

I have a player profile of everyone that I play with.

Daniel Negreanu (14:32.200)

Whenever I pick up, whether it's physical tells

Lex Fridman (14:34.040)

or tendencies they like to, you know, that they have.

Lex Fridman (14:38.760)

And overall, that's just going to, you know,

Lex Fridman (14:41.200)

that's going to allow you to exploit more, right?

Lex Fridman (14:43.840)

So like if I played with somebody I've never played before,

Lex Fridman (14:46.520)

I'm probably just going to play optimally

Daniel Negreanu (14:48.640)

or at least as optimal as I know how until I start to,

Lex Fridman (14:51.640)

you know, gain some information on that player

Lex Fridman (14:53.360)

so that I can start to exploit them.

Lex Fridman (14:55.500)

So what's the, when you say optimally,

Lex Fridman (14:57.420)

what does optimally mean versus,

Lex Fridman (14:59.520)

so game theory optimal versus exploitative?

Daniel Negreanu (15:04.400)

Yeah, so that's like sort of the big debate in poker.

Lex Fridman (15:06.640)

We call it for short,

Daniel Negreanu (15:07.800)

GTO game theory optimal versus exploitative play.

Lex Fridman (15:11.560)

So GTO game theory optimal is the idea that no,

Daniel Negreanu (15:15.160)

like I'm going to set up my play

Lex Fridman (15:16.920)

so that no matter what you do, you cannot exploit me.

Lex Fridman (15:20.400)

So essentially that's playing rock, paper, scissors, right?

Lex Fridman (15:23.960)

And throwing 33% of each every time, right?

Daniel Negreanu (15:27.640)

Nothing you do can beat that, nothing.

Lex Fridman (15:29.920)

You'll never be able to beat that, right?

Daniel Negreanu (15:31.980)

Exploitative play is starting to notice that, okay,

Lex Fridman (15:34.400)

well, you know what?

Daniel Negreanu (15:35.240)

This guy loves rock.

Lex Fridman (15:36.200)

He loves playing rock.

Lex Fridman (15:37.840)

So I'm going to go paper a little more.

Lex Fridman (15:39.460)

So I'm going to take advantage of them.

Lex Fridman (15:40.600)

So I won't be through, but now all of a sudden,

Lex Fridman (15:42.200)

when I do that, I'm no longer playing optimal

Daniel Negreanu (15:44.440)

because if you knew that I was making that adjustment,

Lex Fridman (15:46.240)

now you can exploit me.

Lex Fridman (15:47.960)

So that's where the sort of what we call

Lex Fridman (15:49.200)

the leveling war happens, where people veer from,

Daniel Negreanu (15:52.440)

you know, the optimal line of, okay, 33% each for each one.

Lex Fridman (15:56.420)

You can't beat that, but you also can't win with that either.

Lex Fridman (16:00.860)

So you're always trying to be at the cutting,

Lex Fridman (16:03.260)

at the leading edge of suboptimal play.

Daniel Negreanu (16:06.120)

Yeah, you're going back and forth.

Lex Fridman (16:07.200)

And listen, at the highest levels,

Daniel Negreanu (16:09.000)

like online that these guys play,

Lex Fridman (16:11.000)

like they're trying to play pretty close

Daniel Negreanu (16:13.000)

to like game theory optimal

Lex Fridman (16:15.120)

because it's very difficult to do first of all.

Daniel Negreanu (16:16.520)

No human being will ever be able to compute

Lex Fridman (16:20.040)

at the level that computers can.

Daniel Negreanu (16:21.640)

It's just never going to happen.

Lex Fridman (16:23.420)

So that's where like the human mind has to come into play

Lex Fridman (16:26.640)

and say, all right, well, you know,

Lex Fridman (16:28.480)

if I was playing against the robot, I would do X,

Lex Fridman (16:30.220)

but I'm not, I'm playing against you.

Lex Fridman (16:31.880)

So I have to adjust.

Lex Fridman (16:32.880)

So does game theory optimal only look at the betting

Lex Fridman (16:36.160)

and the hands in the current hand

Lex Fridman (16:40.560)

or does it look at the history?

Lex Fridman (16:42.280)

So if you were to play optimally, optimally,

Daniel Negreanu (16:44.600)

would you need to look at the history

Lex Fridman (16:46.280)

of the individual players

Lex Fridman (16:47.240)

or just every hand is taken afresh?

Lex Fridman (16:49.400)

See, that's why I love playing exploitatively

Daniel Negreanu (16:52.000)

for the most part, because with GTO,

Lex Fridman (16:54.840)

anything that's happened in the past

Daniel Negreanu (16:56.280)

has no bearing on this situation.

Lex Fridman (16:58.160)

It's simply based on what is the optimal play

Daniel Negreanu (17:00.680)

in a vacuum in this spot.

Lex Fridman (17:02.340)

Whereas exploitatively, okay,

Daniel Negreanu (17:03.840)

this guy bluffs way too much in these spots.

Lex Fridman (17:06.140)

So now I can make an adjustment and call more, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (17:08.980)

based on past information.

Lex Fridman (17:11.000)

GTO doesn't take into account history at all.

Lex Fridman (17:14.120)

So like in a tournament,

Lex Fridman (17:15.280)

how quickly can you construct a player profile

Lex Fridman (17:17.680)

that you've never played before?

Lex Fridman (17:19.360)

Depends on the level of the buy in really, right?

Lex Fridman (17:22.360)

So the higher the buy in, generally speaking,

Lex Fridman (17:25.600)

you can assume if they're professionals,

Daniel Negreanu (17:27.480)

that they're gonna have pretty similar profiles

Lex Fridman (17:29.600)

because you know, everyone's playing,

Daniel Negreanu (17:31.040)

you know, if you're playing this game well,

Lex Fridman (17:32.560)

it looks similar, right?

Daniel Negreanu (17:34.660)

At the lower levels, you know,

Lex Fridman (17:35.840)

playing say in $1,000 or $1,500 buy in or less,

Daniel Negreanu (17:39.020)

you know, within a half an hour or an hour,

Lex Fridman (17:41.800)

I have an idea of all right,

Daniel Negreanu (17:43.000)

just by seeing how some players played a few hands that,

Lex Fridman (17:46.840)

you know, so here's the thing with poker,

Daniel Negreanu (17:48.000)

it's like, I can see one clue of what he did.

Lex Fridman (17:50.080)

And it tells me so much about what he'll do

Daniel Negreanu (17:51.760)

in a vast number of scenarios.

Lex Fridman (17:53.920)

And you're saying at the high level,

Daniel Negreanu (17:55.120)

people don't give too many clues.

Lex Fridman (17:56.440)

I mean, then.

Daniel Negreanu (17:57.280)

Well, at the highest level is,

Lex Fridman (17:59.160)

people are so much more similar

Daniel Negreanu (18:00.480)

in terms of their style of play.

Lex Fridman (18:02.200)

They try to find some kind of balance between the GTO.

Lex Fridman (18:04.880)

And now with all that we've seen on TV, right?

Lex Fridman (18:07.240)

Like people get to watch streams and whatever.

Lex Fridman (18:08.880)

So you get to watch all the top players play.

Lex Fridman (18:10.860)

So if you wanna learn how to play better,

Lex Fridman (18:11.960)

guess what you do?

Lex Fridman (18:12.840)

You copy what they're doing, essentially.

Daniel Negreanu (18:14.920)

Like, oh, he's only raising this much.

Lex Fridman (18:16.440)

I'm gonna do the same.

Daniel Negreanu (18:17.560)

They're betting this much.

Lex Fridman (18:18.400)

I'm gonna do the same.

Lex Fridman (18:19.360)

So as a result,

Lex Fridman (18:21.520)

what you end up having is sort of,

Daniel Negreanu (18:25.120)

you know, everyone deciding.

Lex Fridman (18:26.600)

Like, I guess it's similar in chess with openings, right?

Daniel Negreanu (18:28.480)

People figure out, okay, this is an opening.

Lex Fridman (18:29.840)

This is what you do.

Lex Fridman (18:30.960)

And that's it, you know?

Lex Fridman (18:31.840)

And then everyone's similar to that.

Lex Fridman (18:33.360)

And then you have, of course, the outliers

Lex Fridman (18:35.060)

who try to do things a little differently

Lex Fridman (18:36.760)

and confuse people.

Lex Fridman (18:38.360)

It seems like the outliers,

Daniel Negreanu (18:39.500)

like we talked offline that Magnus,

Lex Fridman (18:41.400)

in order to win Magnus Carlsen,

Daniel Negreanu (18:43.480)

has to play suboptimally in the openings

Lex Fridman (18:45.980)

to take his opponents out of the comfort zone

Lex Fridman (18:49.320)

so he can play what he calls pure chess

Lex Fridman (18:51.520)

as quickly as possible,

Daniel Negreanu (18:52.880)

which is just both short and deep calculations.

Lex Fridman (18:56.280)

Purely, you're looking at the board

Daniel Negreanu (18:57.760)

versus memorized openings and memorized lines.

Lex Fridman (19:01.720)

Is it the case that the best poker players

Daniel Negreanu (19:05.440)

are the ones that are able to, at the right time,

Lex Fridman (19:09.760)

play really suboptimally or really unorthodox?

Daniel Negreanu (19:15.480)

Yeah, specifically there's one guy

Lex Fridman (19:17.080)

who last year sort of took the poker world by storm,

Lex Fridman (19:19.580)

and his name was Michael Adamo.

Lex Fridman (19:21.080)

And he was doing things, like I said,

Daniel Negreanu (19:22.840)

you know, most of the top pros play very similarly

Lex Fridman (19:25.100)

with the way that they construct ranges

Lex Fridman (19:27.280)

and their bet sizing and all these kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (19:28.860)

He was doing some crazy things

Daniel Negreanu (19:30.840)

that nobody else was doing.

Lex Fridman (19:32.720)

So he studied sort of a different form of poker

Lex Fridman (19:36.080)

and it was unorthodox.

Lex Fridman (19:38.080)

And it, you know, it throws people off

Daniel Negreanu (19:40.380)

because he's in his comfort zone

Lex Fridman (19:41.720)

with these bet sizes and different things,

Daniel Negreanu (19:43.360)

whereas everyone else,

Lex Fridman (19:44.400)

they're not well studied in those spots.

Lex Fridman (19:46.640)

So as a result of him being unorthodox,

Lex Fridman (19:49.200)

he became like a monster and very difficult to play against

Daniel Negreanu (19:51.640)

because he really knew what he was doing with it.

Lex Fridman (19:53.080)

In tournament or cash games?

Daniel Negreanu (19:54.800)

It was tournaments, yeah.

Lex Fridman (19:55.640)

He was crushing tournaments.

Daniel Negreanu (19:56.920)

He was going against the norm

Lex Fridman (19:58.640)

in terms of what is like, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:01.220)

Even if you aren't all that talented or gifted,

Lex Fridman (1:00:05.020)

having a good work ethic is a talent, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:07.460)

Not necessarily card sense, but if you're able to put

Lex Fridman (1:00:09.860)

in the work and study from these solvers,

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:12.180)

you essentially have the perfect study tool now

Lex Fridman (1:00:15.420)

that we didn't have in my day.

Lex Fridman (1:00:17.160)

So what do the solvers give you?

Lex Fridman (1:00:19.900)

Do you start to memorize the optimal play

Lex Fridman (1:00:22.120)

for every single hand?

Lex Fridman (1:00:24.120)

You try your best.

Lex Fridman (1:00:25.300)

So again, solvers are imperfect as well,

Lex Fridman (1:00:28.720)

in terms of the way the humans utilize them, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:32.700)

Because you can give solvers a certain number of inputs

Lex Fridman (1:00:36.860)

in terms of what you want it to solve,

Lex Fridman (1:00:38.500)

but a solver can think on many, many levels.

Lex Fridman (1:00:40.900)

So for example, the way that a typical player

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:43.240)

would do a solve is to say, okay,

Lex Fridman (1:00:45.580)

what does a solver think is the best play here?

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:47.860)

Bet one third pot, bet two thirds pot,

Lex Fridman (1:00:50.700)

or bet one and a half times pot, okay?

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:52.580)

You give it three parameters, it comes out with an output

Lex Fridman (1:00:55.820)

and it tells you what you should do

Daniel Negreanu (1:00:57.420)

with all the different hands you have.

Lex Fridman (1:00:59.320)

However, that's a simplified version

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:01.820)

of what a solver would really do,

Lex Fridman (1:01:02.940)

because a solver might decide

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:04.580)

that seven times the pot is best, 10% of the pot.

Lex Fridman (1:01:08.100)

But when you're putting in a solve,

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:09.860)

you can only put in specific parameters.

Lex Fridman (1:01:12.540)

So that's why, frankly, that's typically the number,

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:14.900)

one third, two third, and one and a half times pot

Lex Fridman (1:01:17.140)

is what people often do.

Lex Fridman (1:01:18.500)

So they sort of have a vague idea of what a solver wants.

Lex Fridman (1:01:21.860)

But again, imperfect in terms of the implementation of it.

Lex Fridman (1:01:26.660)

And memorizing all the variables,

Lex Fridman (1:01:29.060)

like that King Jack offsuit with the King of Diamonds

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:31.780)

is 13%, no human brain can do that.

Lex Fridman (1:01:35.800)

So what you do is you bucket it.

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:37.500)

Like you bucket it into say, instead of 10,000 variables,

Lex Fridman (1:01:41.000)

you have 10 buckets and you say, okay,

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:42.580)

with these hands, we do roughly this,

Lex Fridman (1:01:44.100)

and we do roughly this.

Lex Fridman (1:01:45.140)

And you try your best to stay within those lines.

Lex Fridman (1:01:48.260)

But again, what I love about live poker partly

Daniel Negreanu (1:01:50.460)

is that nobody will ever be able to master game theory,

Lex Fridman (1:01:54.560)

and mimic a solver.

Lex Fridman (1:01:57.800)

But you also have to incorporate your position,

Lex Fridman (1:02:03.080)

where you are, and obviously what cards you have,

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.460)

but also the size of your stack,

Lex Fridman (1:02:08.920)

how much money you have,

Lex Fridman (1:02:09.920)

and also whether you have the ability

Lex Fridman (1:02:12.440)

or desire to buy in, all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (1:02:15.460)

So you have to calculate all of that, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:17.600)

So the solver will do that, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:20.440)

And essentially, you don't input your hand.

Lex Fridman (1:02:23.120)

It tells you, you'll look at the grade,

Lex Fridman (1:02:25.600)

and be like, all right, this is my hand,

Lex Fridman (1:02:27.320)

and it tells you what it is.

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.160)

But it tells you what you would do with any hand, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:30.960)

It gives you the full output.

Lex Fridman (1:02:32.280)

And that actually gives you a better idea,

Lex Fridman (1:02:34.040)

because you're ultimately, like you said,

Daniel Negreanu (1:02:36.800)

playing a range of hands, not a hand.

Lex Fridman (1:02:39.400)

And the solvers do things that are really interesting.

Daniel Negreanu (1:02:41.240)

You've seen AlphaGo, I would imagine.

Lex Fridman (1:02:43.040)

Brilliant film, right, I thought.

Lex Fridman (1:02:44.680)

And I thought what was interesting is there was,

Lex Fridman (1:02:46.920)

you know, accepted theory from all the top Go players,

Daniel Negreanu (1:02:50.280)

this is what you do.

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.160)

But the AI was doing things way different,

Lex Fridman (1:02:54.360)

and they're like, this has to be wrong,

Lex Fridman (1:02:55.720)

but really it wasn't.

Lex Fridman (1:02:56.880)

So for example, a solver may say this, right?

Lex Fridman (1:03:00.760)

Let's say you bet on the end, and you bet a lot,

Lex Fridman (1:03:04.360)

and a solver may say, you should fold here

Lex Fridman (1:03:07.460)

with a pair of kings and a queen kicker,

Daniel Negreanu (1:03:10.040)

which is, you know, a pair of kings,

Lex Fridman (1:03:12.000)

but call with a pair of fours and an ace kicker.

Lex Fridman (1:03:15.080)

So it's essentially telling you

Lex Fridman (1:03:16.900)

that you should fold this hand

Daniel Negreanu (1:03:18.800)

that is much better than this.

Lex Fridman (1:03:20.080)

So it begs the question, why?

Daniel Negreanu (1:03:23.160)

Because what the solvers do is they use the information

Lex Fridman (1:03:27.000)

of your own cards to formulate all the possible hands

Daniel Negreanu (1:03:30.400)

your opponent can have.

Lex Fridman (1:03:32.080)

So if your opponent is,

Lex Fridman (1:03:34.160)

so basically if you had the king, queen,

Lex Fridman (1:03:36.640)

you know, it may say, for lack of a better nerdy term,

Daniel Negreanu (1:03:41.760)

it blocks potential bluffing hands

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.480)

that your opponent can have.

Lex Fridman (1:03:44.680)

So let's say if your opponent would bluff with queen, jack,

Lex Fridman (1:03:47.760)

but you have a queen.

Lex Fridman (1:03:49.160)

So there are less combinations of queen, jack.

Lex Fridman (1:03:51.320)

So it will find a better bluff catcher, if you will.

Lex Fridman (1:03:54.200)

So that's what's really not intuitive to poker players.

Lex Fridman (1:03:56.560)

Poker players usually think like,

Daniel Negreanu (1:03:58.040)

well, this, my hand is pretty good, so I got a call,

Lex Fridman (1:04:00.820)

but that's not how a solver would think.

Daniel Negreanu (1:04:02.600)

Solver uses, you know, common matrix and, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:04:06.920)

And sometimes it's tough to get the good why answers

Daniel Negreanu (1:04:10.620)

you just did for why a solver thinks something is better,

Lex Fridman (1:04:13.320)

or maybe in poker it's a little bit easier,

Lex Fridman (1:04:14.880)

but in the case of go and chess, it's not always obvious why,

Lex Fridman (1:04:18.880)

because it's not gonna explain stuff to you.

Daniel Negreanu (1:04:20.560)

I think one of the best ways to learn poker

Lex Fridman (1:04:23.480)

is when you see a solver output

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.120)

and it tells you one of these things, try to figure out why.

Lex Fridman (1:04:28.280)

Why does this solver do this?

Lex Fridman (1:04:30.040)

Why does it want you to call with this and fold this?

Lex Fridman (1:04:32.440)

And try to think about it on a deeper level.

Lex Fridman (1:04:34.200)

And you go, aha, probably because this card

Lex Fridman (1:04:36.860)

that I have here, you know, changes the range

Daniel Negreanu (1:04:39.720)

of my opponent's, you know, potential.

Lex Fridman (1:04:42.600)

I'd love to get your opinion

Daniel Negreanu (1:04:43.960)

on your relationship with solvers.

Lex Fridman (1:04:45.600)

Because for example, Magnus doesn't use them.

Daniel Negreanu (1:04:47.960)

His team uses them.

Lex Fridman (1:04:49.400)

Cause he feels like he's going to rely on it too much.

Lex Fridman (1:04:54.200)

And you can't use it when you're playing.

Lex Fridman (1:04:57.120)

What you really want is to build up

Daniel Negreanu (1:04:58.840)

an extremely strong intuition without the help of a solver.

Lex Fridman (1:05:02.780)

Is there some aspect of that that rings true to you?

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:04.920)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (1:05:05.740)

I totally can relate to what Magnus is saying.

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:07.080)

First and foremost, because when solvers

Lex Fridman (1:05:08.640)

was first introduced, I didn't come from that world.

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:11.120)

I was so intimidated because I didn't know how to use it.

Lex Fridman (1:05:13.640)

I don't know how to do an input.

Lex Fridman (1:05:15.400)

So I had two guys, one guy's a data scientist

Lex Fridman (1:05:17.560)

and, you know, another guy's like a poker savant,

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:20.000)

if you will, and they coached me and they did it.

Lex Fridman (1:05:22.520)

So today, if I was in a tough spot, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:05:25.720)

and I'm like, I don't know, what would a solver do?

Lex Fridman (1:05:27.120)

I will send them the hand and they'll run the solve for me.

Lex Fridman (1:05:30.980)

And then sort of give me the parameters of what to do.

Lex Fridman (1:05:33.360)

When I was playing, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:34.920)

regularly using solvers with them,

Lex Fridman (1:05:36.720)

we were spending six to eight hours a day

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:38.240)

going over all these solves.

Lex Fridman (1:05:40.320)

So intuitively I started to think and learn

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:42.760)

about what the solver would want,

Lex Fridman (1:05:44.100)

but I sort of understand where Magnus is coming from

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:46.080)

in that you don't want to become a slave to the sim,

Lex Fridman (1:05:48.320)

as I say, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:49.760)

There's one kid I know, I joked with him,

Lex Fridman (1:05:51.680)

his name is Landon Tice.

Daniel Negreanu (1:05:53.160)

And, you know, he made a play that the sim, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:05:56.200)

would say, this is a good play.

Lex Fridman (1:05:57.880)

But I'm like, it's a good play, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:06:00.080)

in a simulated world against the robot.

Lex Fridman (1:06:01.840)

It's not in practice against the human, right?

Lex Fridman (1:06:05.120)

You don't need to be doing that.

Lex Fridman (1:06:06.660)

So if you become a slave to the sim

Lex Fridman (1:06:08.760)

and always do what the sim says,

Daniel Negreanu (1:06:10.640)

you're handcuffed to a certain degree.

Lex Fridman (1:06:13.080)

Is there some, at the highest level plays,

Lex Fridman (1:06:16.040)

there's still a role for feel and intuition?

Lex Fridman (1:06:19.520)

Absolutely.

Daniel Negreanu (1:06:20.360)

If you're not doing that,

Lex Fridman (1:06:21.200)

cause here's the thing, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:06:22.760)

No human being plays perfectly balanced

Lex Fridman (1:06:25.600)

in game three optimal like a robot would.

Lex Fridman (1:06:27.640)

They're not, right?

Lex Fridman (1:06:29.200)

So there are opportunities there to take advantage

Daniel Negreanu (1:06:31.000)

of the things that they do that are slightly too aggressive

Lex Fridman (1:06:34.360)

or less aggressive.

Daniel Negreanu (1:06:35.840)

You know, for example,

Lex Fridman (1:06:37.200)

say most human beings don't bluff enough in a certain spot.

Lex Fridman (1:06:41.120)

So you don't have to call with the correct range of hands.

Lex Fridman (1:06:44.680)

You don't have to,

Daniel Negreanu (1:06:45.640)

because they're not bluffing at the optimal frequency.

Lex Fridman (1:06:48.040)

So you don't have to call at the optimal frequency.

Daniel Negreanu (1:06:50.520)

You'd be making this mistake, frankly, if you did.

Lex Fridman (1:06:53.880)

What's the difference between in person and online play,

Lex Fridman (1:06:58.520)

given that context?

Lex Fridman (1:06:59.560)

Yeah, well, online poker and live poker,

Lex Fridman (1:07:02.040)

it's the same game, right?

Lex Fridman (1:07:03.400)

Same, it's poker,

Lex Fridman (1:07:04.240)

but it's different in so many levels, right?

Lex Fridman (1:07:07.840)

I think playing online,

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:08.880)

you have to focus far more on fundamentals.

Lex Fridman (1:07:11.040)

You know, on game theory,

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:12.200)

you don't have the added bonus of looking across the table

Lex Fridman (1:07:14.960)

and getting any sense of whether your opponent

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:17.040)

is strong or weak, they're bluffing, whatever, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:07:20.280)

And also because online poker, those that play it,

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:24.680)

you play far more hands.

Lex Fridman (1:07:26.720)

Like some of these guys are playing 10, 20 tables

Lex Fridman (1:07:28.880)

at the same time, right?

Lex Fridman (1:07:30.440)

So you're just, you're hitting the long run really quickly

Lex Fridman (1:07:32.400)

and you're creating a database on your opponents, right?

Lex Fridman (1:07:35.080)

So let's say, you know, online, I can see your data.

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:37.520)

I'm like, well, this guy, he's playing 40% of hands.

Lex Fridman (1:07:40.480)

He's betting the river 80% of the time.

Lex Fridman (1:07:43.240)

So now I can use that data and, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:07:45.560)

exploit you that way.

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:46.400)

When you play live, you don't have that.

Lex Fridman (1:07:49.000)

Do you enjoy playing online?

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:51.160)

I enjoy, so with online poker, I enjoy the convenience of it

Lex Fridman (1:07:54.400)

because, you know, you can be on your couch

Daniel Negreanu (1:07:55.720)

in your underwear, not leave your house.

Lex Fridman (1:07:57.400)

Do you also play multiple games at the same time

Lex Fridman (1:08:00.080)

or do you try to play one game?

Lex Fridman (1:08:01.520)

I typically like to play one or two,

Lex Fridman (1:08:03.640)

but I can play up to four.

Lex Fridman (1:08:05.120)

I find that past four, it's hard for me to keep up

Lex Fridman (1:08:09.360)

and keep track of what's actually happening.

Lex Fridman (1:08:11.360)

You know, it's a different mindset required.

Daniel Negreanu (1:08:13.240)

Like a lot of these young guys,

Lex Fridman (1:08:14.240)

they're accustomed to 20 tables at a time.

Daniel Negreanu (1:08:17.720)

It feels like the purity of the game is gone.

Lex Fridman (1:08:20.680)

It's much more robotic, right?

Lex Fridman (1:08:22.000)

So if you're playing 20 tables,

Lex Fridman (1:08:23.800)

you're just making decisions based on like what, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:08:27.040)

you're not thinking about the depth of the situation

Lex Fridman (1:08:30.280)

and what just happened 15 minutes ago.

Daniel Negreanu (1:08:31.640)

You don't even know what happened

Lex Fridman (1:08:32.600)

because you can't pay attention to all that at once.

Lex Fridman (1:08:35.360)

And some of the magic of poker is the low sample.

Lex Fridman (1:08:37.560)

I agree.

Daniel Negreanu (1:08:38.400)

For example, and sorry to be bringing up Magnus so much,

Lex Fridman (1:08:41.240)

but there's so much parallel between the two of you

Lex Fridman (1:08:42.960)

and the poker and the chess world.

Lex Fridman (1:08:45.640)

He hates Olympics and world championships

Lex Fridman (1:08:49.160)

and all that kind of stuff because it's so low sample.

Lex Fridman (1:08:51.760)

But to me, that's part of the magic of it.

Daniel Negreanu (1:08:53.440)

There's the World Series of Poker, the main event.

Lex Fridman (1:08:56.880)

There's a magic to it.

Daniel Negreanu (1:08:58.440)

I agree, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:08:59.320)

And I don't know what that is exactly

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:00.920)

because so much of the stake is so rare,

Lex Fridman (1:09:03.760)

so much drama and heartbreak leading up to it

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:07.840)

that all somehow, yeah, it accumulates

Lex Fridman (1:09:12.160)

to that magical moment when somebody wins.

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:15.360)

Especially that event,

Lex Fridman (1:09:16.400)

the World Series of Poker main event historically,

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:18.280)

like that's it, you know, that's the pinnacle.

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.040)

That's where like mainstream watches,

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:21.520)

that's where people are tuning in

Lex Fridman (1:09:23.240)

and the gravity of the moment, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:25.440)

it's so much bigger than people,

Lex Fridman (1:09:26.640)

like everyone gets the opportunity

Lex Fridman (1:09:28.320)

to play armchair quarterback too, right?

Lex Fridman (1:09:30.400)

Oh, he should do this.

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:31.440)

You're not there.

Lex Fridman (1:09:32.520)

You're not under the lights.

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:33.560)

You're not under the pressure.

Lex Fridman (1:09:34.920)

You know, it might seem easy for you at home to be like,

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:37.400)

well, yeah, but you can see the whole cards.

Lex Fridman (1:09:39.320)

You know, they can't.

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:40.440)

Certainly the idea of the small sample with tournaments,

Lex Fridman (1:09:44.160)

I like the idea that you don't have to worry about,

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:49.400)

oh, well, if I do this now, then in the future,

Lex Fridman (1:09:52.920)

you know, I won't be balanced.

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:53.960)

I have to be balanced here or anything like that.

Lex Fridman (1:09:55.640)

That's like really boring and lame, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:09:57.960)

Again, that is kind of the way the younger generation

Lex Fridman (1:10:00.720)

learns how to play the game, being balanced in every spot

Lex Fridman (1:10:03.600)

and then randomizing, you know, like, oh,

Lex Fridman (1:10:07.960)

I'm supposed to do this 50% of the time.

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:09.240)

Okay, so if my left card is red, I'll do it.

Lex Fridman (1:10:12.360)

And if it's black, I don't.

Lex Fridman (1:10:13.240)

So you're not even making,

Lex Fridman (1:10:14.400)

you're no longer making actual decisions for yourself.

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:17.000)

You're just randomizing.

Lex Fridman (1:10:18.440)

And that's way less fun for me

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:20.720)

than tailoring it to the situation.

Lex Fridman (1:10:23.200)

And the final table at the main event,

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:24.720)

there's none of that.

Lex Fridman (1:10:25.560)

You have to, I mean, it's all or nothing.

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:28.240)

Well, you shouldn't be, but there are like, again,

Lex Fridman (1:10:30.520)

I think a lot of the young guys,

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:31.560)

they are thinking in that regard,

Lex Fridman (1:10:32.880)

like, oh, randomization.

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:34.800)

Maybe at that table, the final table at the main event,

Lex Fridman (1:10:38.000)

what's a hand that stands out to you

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:39.720)

that was especially gutsy and powerful or memorable

Lex Fridman (1:10:44.080)

for that you've seen in the history of poker?

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:46.080)

Well, for me, the one that stands out

Lex Fridman (1:10:47.520)

and probably because I was so young

Lex Fridman (1:10:49.600)

and it was my first year, like one of my wife,

Lex Fridman (1:10:51.800)

won a bracelet that year,

Daniel Negreanu (1:10:53.240)

was I was friends with Scotty Wynn, the Prince of Poker.

Lex Fridman (1:10:56.400)

And he was heads up against the guy named Kevin McBride.

Lex Fridman (1:10:58.960)

And I was on the rail, you know, I'm like, wow,

Lex Fridman (1:11:00.880)

he's gonna, you know, he's heads up.

Lex Fridman (1:11:02.280)

And he was so cool.

Lex Fridman (1:11:03.480)

Like he had a mullet, but it's perfect, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:05.960)

He had the white shirt, the black thing.

Lex Fridman (1:11:07.640)

He's drinking a Michelob, smoking a cigarette, whatever,

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:10.520)

you know, all chill.

Lex Fridman (1:11:12.120)

He bets it all on the river.

Lex Fridman (1:11:13.800)

And the guy's thinking, and he psychologically owned him.

Lex Fridman (1:11:17.760)

And he said, he goes with his beer, he goes,

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:20.160)

you call gonna be all over baby.

Lex Fridman (1:11:21.760)

Ha ha ha, that's right.

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:23.560)

Okay, so this guy who was an amateur heard that

Lex Fridman (1:11:27.120)

and was like, there's so much pressure

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:29.120)

in this moment right now.

Lex Fridman (1:11:30.240)

I can't handle this pressure.

Lex Fridman (1:11:31.840)

But Scotty just told me, if I call here,

Lex Fridman (1:11:33.920)

the pressure's gone.

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:34.920)

I don't have to be under it anymore.

Lex Fridman (1:11:36.200)

So he sort of hypnotized them into making the call,

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:39.760)

you know, and Scotty had it.

Lex Fridman (1:11:41.440)

Scotty had, you know, the full house

Lex Fridman (1:11:43.240)

and it was over for the guy.

Lex Fridman (1:11:44.200)

You call gonna be all over baby.

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:45.960)

It was, I just, I love that aspect,

Lex Fridman (1:11:47.880)

sort of the table talk dynamic,

Daniel Negreanu (1:11:49.320)

which isn't as prevalent today as it was back then,

Lex Fridman (1:11:54.160)

but that one sticks out.

Lex Fridman (1:11:55.200)

And it probably, because it was one of my first.

Lex Fridman (1:11:57.120)

So the few words you say at the table can completely affect

Daniel Negreanu (1:12:03.000)

a hand like that.

Lex Fridman (1:12:05.120)

That's almost, that's scary.

Daniel Negreanu (1:12:07.660)

It was just so cool to me, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:12:09.720)

like just how he was so calm.

Lex Fridman (1:12:11.900)

And I think that too, added more pressure to the amateur.

Lex Fridman (1:12:14.920)

And I think like, again, part of it is,

Daniel Negreanu (1:12:17.540)

even back then it was 1998,

Lex Fridman (1:12:19.400)

there's still a big rail of people and there's lights

Lex Fridman (1:12:21.640)

and they're, you know, they're filming

Lex Fridman (1:12:22.920)

and all this kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:12:23.760)

And it's a lot of pressure for a guy

Lex Fridman (1:12:25.280)

who's never been in this environment.

Lex Fridman (1:12:26.560)

And now I'm telling you, it can all be over soon.

Lex Fridman (1:12:31.080)

It will all be over soon.

Daniel Negreanu (1:12:33.560)

Just call, it's finished.

Lex Fridman (1:12:36.840)

Something about that accent too.

Daniel Negreanu (1:12:39.160)

Now you're a master at table talk as well.

Lex Fridman (1:12:41.640)

Do you have, do you just kind of go with your gut,

Lex Fridman (1:12:45.240)

you flow with it?

Lex Fridman (1:12:46.200)

Or is there a deliberate strategy with this sometimes?

Daniel Negreanu (1:12:49.240)

There's usually some sort of strategy that I think about

Lex Fridman (1:12:51.760)

in terms of what I want to say and whatnot.

Lex Fridman (1:12:53.380)

But a lot of the time I just go, I go with it, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:12:56.520)

the more you talk, the more information you get.

Daniel Negreanu (1:12:59.160)

Yeah, but in some cases against really good players,

Lex Fridman (1:13:02.000)

you're just giving away information, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:04.280)

Like if I'm playing against Phil Ivey,

Lex Fridman (1:13:05.600)

I'm not engaging in anything.

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:08.020)

Cause he can read through it.

Lex Fridman (1:13:08.960)

He can sense based on what I'm saying, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:11.480)

the clues and where I'm trying to take him.

Lex Fridman (1:13:13.640)

And he reads through, he sees the tree through the forest

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:16.540)

or whatever you want to call it,

Lex Fridman (1:13:17.620)

the forest through the trees.

Lex Fridman (1:13:18.980)

And you know, so then I would just be like

Lex Fridman (1:13:23.080)

allowing myself to be exploitable.

Lex Fridman (1:13:24.480)

Is some of it just for fun?

Lex Fridman (1:13:26.640)

Because at the end of the day, if you're having fun,

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:29.400)

you might be at the top of your game.

Lex Fridman (1:13:31.280)

I've been thinking about this a lot lately actually.

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:33.320)

It's funny you bring this up

Lex Fridman (1:13:34.500)

because I've been thinking about when I'm at my best.

Lex Fridman (1:13:36.960)

And I think I'm at my best when I am comfortable like that.

Lex Fridman (1:13:39.500)

Right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:40.340)

Where I'm not so stiff and worried about, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:13:42.960)

checking properly and worried about reading people.

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:44.920)

I'm like, no, I'm me.

Lex Fridman (1:13:46.440)

All right, I'm going to play some poker.

Lex Fridman (1:13:47.280)

What do you want?

Lex Fridman (1:13:48.120)

Do you want to call me?

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:48.940)

Call, go ahead, do what you want.

Lex Fridman (1:13:49.780)

Right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:50.600)

Cause then I realized, you know, ultimately it was like,

Lex Fridman (1:13:51.640)

I'm comfortable in that.

Daniel Negreanu (1:13:53.080)

My opponents aren't as comfortable in that.

Lex Fridman (1:13:54.600)

They're comfortable with this, you know, the robot thing.

Lex Fridman (1:13:57.240)

But I thought more about that and how,

Lex Fridman (1:13:59.960)

especially with some tournaments coming up,

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:01.920)

I plan on really kind of sort of getting back to my roots

Lex Fridman (1:14:05.400)

in that regard.

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:07.640)

I love it.

Lex Fridman (1:14:08.480)

From a spectator perspective, I love it.

Lex Fridman (1:14:10.040)

But it's also interesting whenever you see a Daniel

Lex Fridman (1:14:11.880)

on the ground of quiet.

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:15.080)

That's an interesting, like it feels like a calm

Lex Fridman (1:14:19.360)

before a storm of sorts.

Lex Fridman (1:14:20.880)

So I'm sure that's also part of it.

Lex Fridman (1:14:22.440)

Yeah, like I've gone, I've ebbed and flowed.

Lex Fridman (1:14:24.160)

And like I said, you know, I took on some coaches

Lex Fridman (1:14:25.960)

and that was really learning game theory.

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:27.360)

Cause I felt like it was important to always stick,

Lex Fridman (1:14:29.600)

you know, keep up with what's going on.

Lex Fridman (1:14:31.160)

And then I do feel like to some degree,

Lex Fridman (1:14:33.480)

it sort of took away a little bit of my own

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:37.760)

instinctual ideas in terms of what I should be doing.

Lex Fridman (1:14:39.840)

Right?

Lex Fridman (1:14:40.680)

So I think like the most dangerous version of myself

Lex Fridman (1:14:43.840)

is a deep understanding of the game theory

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:46.820)

with my wisdom of many years of,

Lex Fridman (1:14:50.040)

and comfort of just sort of like being myself at the table.

Lex Fridman (1:14:53.240)

And being relaxed.

Lex Fridman (1:14:54.440)

Relaxed.

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:55.280)

Letting your mind flow.

Lex Fridman (1:14:56.600)

Let me ask you the greatest, the goat question,

Daniel Negreanu (1:14:59.280)

greatest of all time.

Lex Fridman (1:15:00.280)

Can you make the case for a few folks?

Lex Fridman (1:15:03.320)

So first you tweeted referring to Phil Ivey as the goat,

Lex Fridman (1:15:07.480)

saying the goat doing goat things.

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:09.320)

That's a recent tweet.

Lex Fridman (1:15:10.720)

So can you make the case for Phil Ivey,

Lex Fridman (1:15:14.240)

or maybe who is the greatest poker player of all time?

Lex Fridman (1:15:17.560)

Would you put Phil?

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:19.040)

For me, until someone knocks him off the podium,

Lex Fridman (1:15:21.880)

the king of poker and the goat is Phil Ivey.

Lex Fridman (1:15:24.680)

Okay?

Lex Fridman (1:15:25.520)

So, and the reason I say that is,

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:26.340)

I think of poker as more than just one game.

Lex Fridman (1:15:28.240)

Right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:29.080)

There's different variants.

Lex Fridman (1:15:29.920)

You know, there's Holdem, Omaha, Stud, Triple Draw,

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:32.480)

all these different types of games.

Lex Fridman (1:15:33.960)

And Phil in every arena has been dominant.

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:37.920)

Whether it was tournament poker, dominated it.

Lex Fridman (1:15:40.560)

Mixed game, high stakes poker in Bobby's room, dominated.

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:43.680)

Online poker against all the wizards, dominated.

Lex Fridman (1:15:46.900)

Made millions in every arena.

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:48.600)

And, you know, he sort of took a few years away from poker

Lex Fridman (1:15:51.200)

with his legal troubles and things like that,

Lex Fridman (1:15:52.720)

but he's back.

Lex Fridman (1:15:53.680)

You know, he's been playing in the high roller series again.

Daniel Negreanu (1:15:56.280)

And, you know, he comes from,

Lex Fridman (1:15:58.160)

he's cut from a different cloth,

Lex Fridman (1:15:59.860)

but he has a tenacity and a focus that's unparalleled,

Lex Fridman (1:16:03.700)

I think.

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:04.540)

When he's in the zone, I mean, for lack,

Lex Fridman (1:16:06.480)

and this has nothing to do with race.

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:08.080)

It really has to do with mannerism,

Lex Fridman (1:16:09.560)

but he does remind me of like a combination

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:12.320)

of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods

Lex Fridman (1:16:14.000)

in the way that he approaches it.

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:15.080)

He's very intense.

Lex Fridman (1:16:16.720)

And he outworks everybody, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:16:19.040)

And I think, frankly,

Lex Fridman (1:16:20.400)

a lot of his mannerisms do come from them

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:22.580)

because he's young watching these guys on TV.

Lex Fridman (1:16:25.000)

And a lot of his ways of being, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:27.280)

his learned behavior, I think probably from people like that.

Lex Fridman (1:16:29.400)

People at the top of their sport

Lex Fridman (1:16:31.320)

and people that are Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan

Lex Fridman (1:16:34.400)

aren't just at the top of their sport,

Lex Fridman (1:16:35.720)

but they kind of dominate the sport

Lex Fridman (1:16:37.160)

to some kind of aura that.

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:38.440)

There's a uniqueness to them.

Lex Fridman (1:16:39.720)

They're not built like us.

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:41.440)

They're not, you know, they're not.

Lex Fridman (1:16:42.760)

Like I wish, I wish I could have the kind of focus

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:45.200)

that Phil Ivey has, you know, and see everything

Lex Fridman (1:16:47.120)

that he's saying.

Lex Fridman (1:16:47.960)

I just, that's not me, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:16:49.520)

I don't have that.

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.400)

And he does, he has that gene, whatever it is.

Lex Fridman (1:16:53.400)

But they also look like they're not having that much fun.

Daniel Negreanu (1:16:55.700)

They're more focused on the perfection,

Lex Fridman (1:16:58.180)

like a dogged pursuit of perfection.

Lex Fridman (1:17:00.080)

And you know, that might even be true.

Lex Fridman (1:17:01.880)

It might not be as fun.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:03.080)

You know, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:17:03.920)

Like I have fun at the table.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:05.080)

When you look outwardly, you look at someone,

Lex Fridman (1:17:07.200)

like maybe he is having a blast.

Lex Fridman (1:17:08.560)

Maybe that's just the way that he likes, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:17:11.080)

Like is Tiger Woods having fun when he's like on 17

Lex Fridman (1:17:13.880)

about to win a major?

Lex Fridman (1:17:14.720)

It doesn't look like it, theoretically.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:16.920)

Well, if you look at Michael Jordan,

Lex Fridman (1:17:19.240)

I don't know about Tiger Woods,

Lex Fridman (1:17:20.320)

but I think they're more focused

Lex Fridman (1:17:22.760)

on every single mistake they make.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:25.000)

I think they're more obsessed about not making a mistake

Lex Fridman (1:17:27.920)

and hating every time they make a mistake.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:30.480)

That's probably like 99% of their mental energy.

Lex Fridman (1:17:34.760)

I think that's part of what makes them great, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:37.400)

They don't look past the mistake and just let it,

Lex Fridman (1:17:39.160)

it's whatever.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:40.000)

They're like, they want to correct it.

Lex Fridman (1:17:41.800)

And yeah, there's a tension, almost like a trade off.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:44.540)

I wonder if that's always the case

Lex Fridman (1:17:45.840)

between sort of greatness and happiness.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:49.200)

I remember Huck Seed, who, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:17:51.680)

when I was a kid growing up, he was like the poker idol.

Daniel Negreanu (1:17:53.960)

He won the world championship in 1996.

Lex Fridman (1:17:55.920)

And I was lucky enough to hang out with him a little bit.

Lex Fridman (1:17:57.960)

And he would go through these streaks

Lex Fridman (1:17:59.160)

where he had an A game and he had an F game.

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:02.480)

His A game was unparalleled.

Lex Fridman (1:18:03.720)

Nobody could beat him, right?

Lex Fridman (1:18:05.080)

But his F game was so terrible that he was just a fish.

Lex Fridman (1:18:09.040)

You know, he was playing terribly.

Lex Fridman (1:18:10.240)

And I remember him saying,

Lex Fridman (1:18:11.280)

and it was exactly what you're saying.

Lex Fridman (1:18:13.320)

He'd make like one little mistake, right?

Lex Fridman (1:18:16.240)

And then he would go off.

Lex Fridman (1:18:17.720)

And I was like, Huck, why do you do that?

Lex Fridman (1:18:19.320)

Like, you know, your B game would be just fine.

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:20.720)

He's like, well, if I'm gonna make a mistake,

Lex Fridman (1:18:21.880)

what's the point?

Lex Fridman (1:18:23.580)

What's the point, right?

Lex Fridman (1:18:25.000)

I'm trying.

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:26.000)

Like, if you can't play perfect,

Lex Fridman (1:18:27.320)

there's no point in playing at all.

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.840)

So he was extreme in that regard,

Lex Fridman (1:18:30.720)

in the way that he viewed it.

Lex Fridman (1:18:32.040)

And depending on the sport,

Lex Fridman (1:18:33.760)

those folks, like in chess, certainly the case,

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:36.400)

that kind of mindset can destroy you.

Lex Fridman (1:18:38.520)

Absolutely.

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:39.360)

No, I totally see that.

Lex Fridman (1:18:40.200)

Because of a sequence of mistakes.

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:42.760)

Like the kind of year you had

Lex Fridman (1:18:44.680)

with the well scissor poker

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:45.760)

can completely destroy a human being.

Lex Fridman (1:18:48.400)

If you're not able to see the bigger picture of it.

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:51.080)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:18:52.200)

You said that Phil Ivey is the hardest,

Daniel Negreanu (1:18:55.280)

your toughest opponent,

Lex Fridman (1:18:56.360)

the toughest person to play against.

Lex Fridman (1:18:57.800)

Why is that?

Lex Fridman (1:18:59.000)

And how do you beat him?

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:00.720)

Because Phil Ivey's just,

Lex Fridman (1:19:02.240)

he's seeing things that nobody else has seen really.

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:04.840)

Like subtle things, where I'm putting my hands,

Lex Fridman (1:19:06.780)

where I'm looking, you know, my pulse,

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:08.760)

like stuff that I don't even know I'm giving off.

Lex Fridman (1:19:10.680)

He's so engaged and so focused

Lex Fridman (1:19:13.000)

and has such a, just a, he's fearless, right?

Lex Fridman (1:19:17.600)

A lot of people, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:18.560)

they'll play poker and be like,

Lex Fridman (1:19:19.400)

you know what?

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:20.220)

I don't think this guy has it.

Lex Fridman (1:19:21.060)

But do they have the guts?

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:22.480)

Do they have the cojones, if you will,

Lex Fridman (1:19:24.360)

to actually do anything about it?

Lex Fridman (1:19:26.320)

Right?

Lex Fridman (1:19:27.160)

And stand up to this person?

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:27.980)

He does.

Lex Fridman (1:19:28.820)

You know?

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:29.660)

I forgot the hand that you tweeted

Lex Fridman (1:19:30.840)

about the goat doing goat things.

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:33.200)

That wasn't even that big of a goat hand.

Lex Fridman (1:19:34.960)

But like, there's hands where like,

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:37.280)

there was a famous one in Australia

Lex Fridman (1:19:39.980)

where the flop was like jack, jack at nine

Lex Fridman (1:19:43.240)

and Phil check raised the flop with six, seven, nothing.

Lex Fridman (1:19:46.640)

Just absolutely nothing.

Lex Fridman (1:19:47.840)

And the guy re raised him, right?

Lex Fridman (1:19:50.440)

And Phil just knew.

Daniel Negreanu (1:19:52.080)

He went all in with nothing.

Lex Fridman (1:19:53.800)

If the guy calls, he's done, he's cooked.

Lex Fridman (1:19:55.600)

But he was so tuned in that this guy's not strong,

Lex Fridman (1:19:59.240)

that he just, you know, he did things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:20:01.220)

And it's tough to play against a guy like that.

Lex Fridman (1:20:03.400)

So he gets great reads and is able to execute on them,

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:07.680)

has the guts to execute on them.

Lex Fridman (1:20:09.960)

He's got experience, he's got work ethic.

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:12.640)

He also, I think one thing I'm underselling too,

Lex Fridman (1:20:16.180)

is his strategic mind, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:18.240)

Like I believe that, you know, like I said,

Lex Fridman (1:20:21.800)

the new age player, they learn how to play

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:23.460)

through a very systematic approach.

Lex Fridman (1:20:25.240)

Okay, let's look at the data.

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:27.040)

Make up a game right now.

Lex Fridman (1:20:29.080)

Three cards, we each get three cards.

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:31.100)

Jacks are wild, sixes are, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:20:34.040)

six of hearts is wild, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:35.600)

Just make up that game.

Lex Fridman (1:20:36.840)

Phil will figure it out intuitively,

Lex Fridman (1:20:39.320)

very, very quickly, right?

Lex Fridman (1:20:41.100)

Without having the answers for him, right?

Lex Fridman (1:20:43.760)

So that's like the difference

Lex Fridman (1:20:45.000)

between the players of my generation.

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:46.740)

We had to figure this stuff out on our own.

Lex Fridman (1:20:48.880)

Today, well, I wanna know the answer,

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:50.880)

I go ask the computer and the computer tells me.

Lex Fridman (1:20:53.240)

So I really believe like if you created a game from scratch

Daniel Negreanu (1:20:55.720)

that Phil Ivey would be my horse that I wanna play in it.

Lex Fridman (1:20:59.140)

So he's in some sense in tune with some deeper thing.

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:03.520)

He has what we used to call card sense.

Lex Fridman (1:21:06.200)

Card sense.

Lex Fridman (1:21:07.720)

Can you try to make the case for some others

Lex Fridman (1:21:09.880)

like Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negrano,

Lex Fridman (1:21:13.960)

and maybe one of the modern guys

Lex Fridman (1:21:15.760)

like Justin Bonomo or somebody like that?

Lex Fridman (1:21:17.240)

Sure, oh, so let's start with Doyle, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.000)

Like what Doyle has going for him above all,

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:22.040)

above and beyond is twofold, really.

Lex Fridman (1:21:24.240)

Longevity, I mean, he's in his late 80s.

Lex Fridman (1:21:26.760)

And last time I played with him, I was like,

Lex Fridman (1:21:29.240)

how is he getting better?

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:30.480)

Like I really felt like he was playing better

Lex Fridman (1:21:32.080)

than he had, you know, in the previous years.

Lex Fridman (1:21:34.640)

But also with Doyle, like Doyle had to figure,

Lex Fridman (1:21:38.040)

you know, we talked about my generation

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:39.880)

having to figure it on their own.

Lex Fridman (1:21:40.920)

I mean, they really had to figure it out on their own.

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:43.040)

Like they didn't have any computer simulation

Lex Fridman (1:21:45.200)

to tell you if Ace King was a favorite over pocket sixes.

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:47.720)

They didn't.

Lex Fridman (1:21:48.560)

So we know what he did.

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:49.380)

He would take a deck of cards and they would deal out,

Lex Fridman (1:21:51.640)

and they were with a notepad, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:21:53.060)

Okay, Ace King won.

Lex Fridman (1:21:54.360)

And then they would do like a hundred of them

Lex Fridman (1:21:55.640)

and be like, all right, Ace King won like 53.

Lex Fridman (1:21:57.680)

So it must be a favorite.

Lex Fridman (1:21:58.720)

And he did it manually, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:22:00.720)

And he did it in a time when it was very, very difficult.

Lex Fridman (1:22:03.200)

And he's seen poker evolve and change throughout the years.

Lex Fridman (1:22:06.140)

Now, listen, is he gonna be able to compete

Lex Fridman (1:22:08.240)

against the top players in the world today?

Lex Fridman (1:22:09.400)

Absolutely not, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:22:10.960)

But how many people, he's the best 88 year old player

Lex Fridman (1:22:14.680)

in the world by a mile, okay?

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:16.400)

That's not even close.

Lex Fridman (1:22:17.640)

And Doyle, again, he's another guy who plays all the games.

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:20.120)

He's played high stakes cash, tournaments, you name it.

Lex Fridman (1:22:22.840)

He's iconic, you know, he's the godfather.

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:24.520)

So, but there's also an element to that.

Lex Fridman (1:22:26.440)

So the iconic element, like your personality in poker.

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:30.500)

I mean, not to romanticize this thing too much,

Lex Fridman (1:22:33.360)

but poker is also a game of personalities.

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:38.220)

I mean, it's part of the greatness

Lex Fridman (1:22:39.920)

is like the uniqueness of the human being.

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:43.040)

Yeah, I think also, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:22:44.200)

I mean, if you'd like looking at it from that perspective

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:46.080)

in terms of like Goat,

Lex Fridman (1:22:47.320)

like Goat in terms of what you represent,

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:49.320)

like the cowboy, the godfather, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:22:51.400)

he's been around, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:52.320)

we played in the sixties and stuff like that.

Lex Fridman (1:22:54.560)

It's just something like incredibly cool.

Daniel Negreanu (1:22:56.400)

Like I often think about if I could go back in time

Lex Fridman (1:22:59.360)

and like visit, you know, an era,

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:01.280)

I'd love to go like to Vegas in the seventies

Lex Fridman (1:23:04.200)

and just like, I'm proud.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:05.280)

I already, like, I can think of what it would smell like,

Lex Fridman (1:23:07.080)

probably not ideal, cigarettes and, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:09.240)

the leather jackets and just the vibe

Lex Fridman (1:23:11.300)

of what it must've been like with the mobsters

Lex Fridman (1:23:13.200)

and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.040)

You know, he's lived through all that,

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:15.160)

all the cool movies we've seen.

Lex Fridman (1:23:16.380)

Like Doyle talks about some of those films.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:18.600)

He's like, yeah, that guy,

Lex Fridman (1:23:20.200)

he said he was gonna stab me in my stomach.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:22.120)

You know, he knows these people.

Lex Fridman (1:23:23.880)

It was, he's like a source of history, really.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:27.280)

Yeah, when poker was a game for the mob

Lex Fridman (1:23:31.720)

and the degenerates and all that kind of stuff

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:34.480)

before it transitioned into professional sport.

Lex Fridman (1:23:37.380)

Yeah.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:38.220)

Professional game.

Lex Fridman (1:23:39.060)

Yeah, so he was there through the whole thing.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:40.680)

He's been there through the whole transition.

Lex Fridman (1:23:42.840)

He's seen it all, yeah.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:43.760)

Yeah, and then to the online world.

Lex Fridman (1:23:45.120)

So what about,

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:49.920)

I can't even say without smiling, Phil Hellmuth.

Lex Fridman (1:23:51.760)

Okay, so Phil, here's the thing with Phil.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:53.720)

He takes it very personal when I say this

Lex Fridman (1:23:56.480)

and he doesn't hear the compliment.

Daniel Negreanu (1:23:58.040)

He only hears the negativity.

Lex Fridman (1:23:59.560)

Because Phil wants to be considered

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:00.720)

the greatest of all time.

Lex Fridman (1:24:01.560)

Hashtag positive.

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:02.520)

He wants to be the greatest of all time.

Lex Fridman (1:24:04.360)

But I'm like, Phil, here's the facts.

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:07.040)

You have the best, absolute greatest resume

Lex Fridman (1:24:10.120)

at the World Series of Poker of anyone in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:24:12.320)

Is that not enough, right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:13.960)

That's what you have.

Lex Fridman (1:24:14.860)

You have that, right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:16.200)

Now, do I think you're the best

Lex Fridman (1:24:17.680)

no limit holding player in the world today?

Lex Fridman (1:24:19.320)

No.

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:20.160)

Do I think that, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:24:21.240)

you can play high stakes mixed games

Lex Fridman (1:24:22.800)

with the best players in the world today and win?

Lex Fridman (1:24:24.400)

No, right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:25.320)

So he wouldn't get as much flack on this topic

Lex Fridman (1:24:28.360)

if he wasn't so boastful and like, you know, demanding.

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:31.480)

Like you never hear Phil Ivey say,

Lex Fridman (1:24:32.700)

I'm the best in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:24:33.920)

Like his peers do, right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:35.740)

But Phil wants to make the claim.

Lex Fridman (1:24:37.140)

And I simply say, I beg to differ, right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:40.760)

I beg to differ.

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:41.680)

Like, I don't think you are the best player in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:24:45.480)

If we can linger on the compliment so he can hear it,

Lex Fridman (1:24:49.220)

what makes him so good?

Lex Fridman (1:24:50.440)

Because it seems like a lot of times

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:52.800)

his play is not optimal.

Lex Fridman (1:24:54.680)

Yeah, he definitely has his own brand and style of play,

Lex Fridman (1:24:57.880)

right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:58.720)

He does not adhere to,

Daniel Negreanu (1:24:59.540)

he's never used a solver in his life.

Lex Fridman (1:25:00.760)

He doesn't know, he's not in that world, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:25:03.160)

Phil has a lot of faith and a lot of confidence

Lex Fridman (1:25:05.520)

in what he does and that it will be successful.

Lex Fridman (1:25:07.520)

And I think there's something to be said about that, right?

Lex Fridman (1:25:09.840)

He doesn't ever lack in belief that he can win

Lex Fridman (1:25:13.640)

and he finds a way to do it his way.

Lex Fridman (1:25:15.880)

And frankly, a lot of what he does

Daniel Negreanu (1:25:18.120)

is very effective against specific types of players

Lex Fridman (1:25:21.600)

who are intimidated by him,

Lex Fridman (1:25:23.680)

but whether it's his resume or his demeanor

Lex Fridman (1:25:25.560)

or his attitude sometimes, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:25:27.280)

Like if you're an average player

Lex Fridman (1:25:28.720)

and then you beat Phil in a hand, you're gonna hear it.

Daniel Negreanu (1:25:31.800)

This idiot from Northern Europe and beat me in this pot.

Lex Fridman (1:25:34.960)

And for some people, they don't like that.

Lex Fridman (1:25:37.160)

So he can use that against them.

Lex Fridman (1:25:39.800)

But I also think too, like he cares so much, right?

Lex Fridman (1:25:46.000)

And that leads to trying really, really hard.

Lex Fridman (1:25:48.440)

Like he sees these moments and he doesn't phone them in.

Daniel Negreanu (1:25:50.880)

Like whatever brand of poker he plays,

Lex Fridman (1:25:53.440)

he tries his best at all times to succeed and to win.

Lex Fridman (1:25:57.280)

And there's some, even though like he's fundamentally flawed

Lex Fridman (1:26:00.080)

in a lot of things that he does

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:01.040)

compared to some of the bigger players,

Lex Fridman (1:26:02.840)

his effort and will and like his determination

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:05.160)

to stick around is, you know, is up there.

Lex Fridman (1:26:08.480)

And he is somebody who seems to really hate losing.

Lex Fridman (1:26:12.240)

Yes, yeah, he feels like he deserves to win, right?

Lex Fridman (1:26:17.840)

In all cases.

Lex Fridman (1:26:18.680)

And if he loses, it's, you know, it's not just.

Lex Fridman (1:26:22.000)

As you joked around that you and him

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:23.840)

might do an anger management course.

Lex Fridman (1:26:26.040)

Yeah, I did say that in one video.

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:30.680)

Now this is tough because you're a humble guy,

Lex Fridman (1:26:33.640)

but objectively speaking,

Lex Fridman (1:26:35.400)

can you say what your strengths are?

Lex Fridman (1:26:37.880)

You're often listed as one of,

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:39.760)

if not the greatest player of all time.

Lex Fridman (1:26:41.360)

So what are the things that make you stand out?

Lex Fridman (1:26:44.080)

So for me, when I grew up,

Lex Fridman (1:26:46.320)

I admired the big cash game players,

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:48.240)

because that's what I was.

Lex Fridman (1:26:49.080)

I love tournaments, but I wanted to be well rounded.

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:51.280)

Like in my day, you couldn't make the poker hall of fame

Lex Fridman (1:26:53.760)

if you just played one game.

Daniel Negreanu (1:26:55.240)

You had to jump in to the high stakes games

Lex Fridman (1:26:57.720)

in Bobby's room, as they say, right?

Lex Fridman (1:26:59.800)

And I was able to do that.

Lex Fridman (1:27:00.880)

When I was in my early, in my mid twenties,

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:03.600)

I was playing 4,000, 8,000 limits.

Lex Fridman (1:27:06.000)

You know, you could win or lose a million dollars in a day.

Lex Fridman (1:27:08.080)

So I grinded it out.

Lex Fridman (1:27:09.200)

Like a lot of people think, oh, you know, he's lucky.

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:11.160)

He's had sponsorship.

Lex Fridman (1:27:12.520)

Otherwise he'd be broke.

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:13.360)

It's like, I built multi million dollar bankrolls

Lex Fridman (1:27:16.440)

before any of that stuff existed.

Lex Fridman (1:27:18.000)

And I did it the good old fashioned way

Lex Fridman (1:27:20.160)

by sitting my butt on the table.

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:21.720)

I think probably one of my biggest strengths

Lex Fridman (1:27:24.040)

is self awareness.

Lex Fridman (1:27:25.600)

And in that regard, a level of humility

Lex Fridman (1:27:29.080)

that always allows me to say, okay, well, you know what?

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:31.960)

In this case with these players, they're better than me.

Lex Fridman (1:27:34.440)

So what am I going to learn from them, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:36.200)

Rather than have this need to say,

Lex Fridman (1:27:38.040)

I'm the best because of history.

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:40.040)

I'm always looking to guys and go, wow,

Lex Fridman (1:27:41.520)

he does this really well.

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:42.440)

Whether it's the Adamos or the Ivies or whoever it may be.

Lex Fridman (1:27:46.640)

So my willingness to adapt, I think,

Lex Fridman (1:27:49.000)

and stay relevant by learning what the young guys are learning

Lex Fridman (1:27:53.320)

is something I've always done.

Lex Fridman (1:27:54.760)

And I also pride myself on, again, being well rounded,

Lex Fridman (1:27:58.160)

like playing all the games.

Daniel Negreanu (1:27:59.240)

Like I don't feel intimidated in any game,

Lex Fridman (1:28:02.560)

you know, whatever the format is.

Lex Fridman (1:28:04.440)

So always being a scholar of the game

Lex Fridman (1:28:06.960)

as the game evolves, as the different games evolve,

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:09.720)

the different players evolve, the culture evolves,

Lex Fridman (1:28:12.160)

always adjusting by being a scholar,

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:13.920)

having the humility to be a scholar.

Lex Fridman (1:28:14.760)

A healthy respect for, a healthy respect

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:18.000)

for the younger generation, how they learn,

Lex Fridman (1:28:20.120)

what they learn and what they can teach me,

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:22.320)

rather than poo poo it and say, oh, these kids today.

Lex Fridman (1:28:25.600)

Cause that's what a lot of people,

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:26.760)

like the Mike Matisos and the Phil Hellmuth, my generation,

Lex Fridman (1:28:29.560)

they just poo poo it because they don't understand it.

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:32.040)

On a level of one to 10,

Lex Fridman (1:28:33.680)

their level of understanding of this is like a one, maybe.

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:36.720)

If I'm being generous by calling it a one,

Lex Fridman (1:28:38.560)

they really don't understand it.

Lex Fridman (1:28:39.840)

So they poo poo it, right?

Lex Fridman (1:28:41.760)

It's easy to do that.

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:42.720)

Like, oh, that's not how I do it.

Lex Fridman (1:28:44.040)

So that's wrong or that's stupid or whatever.

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:46.560)

I don't take that approach.

Lex Fridman (1:28:47.560)

I go, well, let me learn.

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:48.640)

Let me see what there is to this.

Lex Fridman (1:28:50.480)

But that said, the crankiness that Matisos

Lex Fridman (1:28:53.080)

and Phil Hellmuth have is great to watch,

Lex Fridman (1:28:55.160)

especially when they're on a table with you.

Daniel Negreanu (1:28:57.440)

Oh, I love it.

Lex Fridman (1:28:58.280)

Yeah, it's a blast.

Daniel Negreanu (1:29:00.480)

You're masterful at being able to get under their skin.

Lex Fridman (1:29:03.560)

What about somebody from the new school,

Daniel Negreanu (1:29:06.280)

like Justin Bonomo, who's leading in terms of cash wins.

Lex Fridman (1:29:11.600)

Is there somebody like that,

Lex Fridman (1:29:12.880)

that stands out to you as a potential GOAT status person?

Lex Fridman (1:29:17.520)

Yeah, so there's two different ones, but one is very...

Lex Fridman (1:29:20.520)

So they're both just no limit, right?

Lex Fridman (1:29:23.080)

So again, when I think of poker,

Daniel Negreanu (1:29:24.920)

I think of a variety of games,

Lex Fridman (1:29:26.920)

but there's so many of the young guys that specialize.

Daniel Negreanu (1:29:29.200)

Michael Adamo is one that I've mentioned several times

Lex Fridman (1:29:31.240)

and I love the way that he approaches the game.

Daniel Negreanu (1:29:32.680)

Another one that's highly respected

Lex Fridman (1:29:34.160)

because of his online prowess and his...

Daniel Negreanu (1:29:37.040)

People have looked and how close he is to game theory

Lex Fridman (1:29:39.480)

and they say he's about as perfect as you get.

Lex Fridman (1:29:41.280)

And I got a kid named Linus.

Lex Fridman (1:29:43.200)

Linus love online, Linus Linger.

Lex Fridman (1:29:46.360)

So he just came second recently, I believe in the Triton,

Lex Fridman (1:29:50.400)

huge Triton event.

Lex Fridman (1:29:51.240)

So he's primarily an online player.

Lex Fridman (1:29:52.600)

Yeah, he's an online cash player for the most part,

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.360)

but he plays some live.

Lex Fridman (1:29:55.360)

And he's, again, and I respect the peers that I play with

Daniel Negreanu (1:29:58.760)

who say, yeah, he's tough as nails.

Lex Fridman (1:30:00.680)

There's another kid too, Russian kid named Timofey Kuznetsov

Lex Fridman (1:30:06.160)

and he plays all the games and he's well respected

Lex Fridman (1:30:10.000)

in that regard.

Lex Fridman (1:30:10.840)

And same with a guy like a Jungleman, Dan Cates,

Lex Fridman (1:30:12.880)

who's a unique personality.

Daniel Negreanu (1:30:14.320)

I mean, this guy showed up, won the poker players championship

Lex Fridman (1:30:17.400)

back to back years in a Randy Macho Man Savage costume.

Lex Fridman (1:30:20.800)

And he was doing Macho Man the entire time.

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.200)

Oh yeah, I'm gonna take all the chips like I did last year.

Daniel Negreanu (1:30:27.480)

Bust them all.

Lex Fridman (1:30:28.320)

And he was in character for the entirety of the tournament.

Daniel Negreanu (1:30:30.480)

This is great.

Lex Fridman (1:30:31.320)

Just unique.

Lex Fridman (1:30:32.160)

But yeah, I respect for a lot of those guys.

Lex Fridman (1:30:35.040)

Is it gonna take time to figure out

Lex Fridman (1:30:36.920)

who stands the test of time?

Lex Fridman (1:30:40.160)

That's the thing, right?

Lex Fridman (1:30:41.440)

So a lot of these kids,

Lex Fridman (1:30:42.520)

like there was a guy who beat me heads up

Daniel Negreanu (1:30:44.920)

in the million dollar one drop.

Lex Fridman (1:30:46.560)

I got 8.7, he won $15 million, kid named Dan Coleman.

Lex Fridman (1:30:49.840)

He was seen as like the next big thing in poker, right?

Lex Fridman (1:30:53.400)

He made his money, just wasn't for him.

Lex Fridman (1:30:56.160)

So he's moved on to doing what he's doing,

Lex Fridman (1:30:58.160)

skiing in the Alps, whatever.

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:00.040)

We have nobody seen him from like five, six years.

Lex Fridman (1:31:02.320)

So that can happen, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:04.640)

Because there is a lot of burnout.

Lex Fridman (1:31:06.000)

I think it was actually a Gotham Chess

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:09.200)

who mentioned something about how difficult it is to like,

Lex Fridman (1:31:12.280)

I think it's true in poker.

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:13.120)

When you get really, really good at something,

Lex Fridman (1:31:15.080)

to get this much better takes so much work.

Lex Fridman (1:31:18.920)

And a lot of people don't necessarily wanna put in

Lex Fridman (1:31:21.360)

that kind of work in order to do that.

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:23.440)

That's just even staying at the same level

Lex Fridman (1:31:25.560)

takes a huge amount of work.

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:27.160)

Like, so if you wanna get better at chess,

Lex Fridman (1:31:28.520)

you're already like really, really good.

Lex Fridman (1:31:29.600)

And you're trying to get like one little bit better.

Lex Fridman (1:31:31.560)

You have to study like in a ridiculous amount, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:31:34.800)

And again, that's once you've already had,

Lex Fridman (1:31:37.040)

I think the toughest thing for anybody,

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:38.480)

once you've tasted success

Lex Fridman (1:31:40.080)

and you've already achieved it,

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:41.800)

staying hungry, staying on the top,

Lex Fridman (1:31:43.800)

reaching the top is much easier than it is to stay there.

Daniel Negreanu (1:31:47.680)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:31:49.000)

Over years, what's your training regimen in poker

Lex Fridman (1:31:53.320)

in terms of how you keep improving?

Lex Fridman (1:31:58.360)

So you said you study games,

Lex Fridman (1:31:59.760)

but that's mostly leading up to a particular tournament.

Lex Fridman (1:32:03.600)

But is there kind of a behind the scenes daily activity

Lex Fridman (1:32:07.800)

you try to do that kind of over time keeps you sharp?

Lex Fridman (1:32:11.560)

So for me, now that I'm 47,

Lex Fridman (1:32:12.960)

and I feel like the predominant aspect of my poker game

Lex Fridman (1:32:17.320)

is going to be in terms of my success

Lex Fridman (1:32:19.200)

is gonna be my mental state, right?

Lex Fridman (1:32:21.560)

So I find it's really, really important for me now

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:23.840)

at this age to have balance.

Lex Fridman (1:32:26.680)

So when I'm not playing poker and I'm out of it,

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:30.600)

poker is not even on my radar.

Lex Fridman (1:32:32.320)

You're able to remove it from your mind.

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:34.320)

Doing my fantasy hockey, play a little chess,

Lex Fridman (1:32:37.160)

you know, play some golf, watch some hockey,

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:40.000)

whatever the case may be,

Lex Fridman (1:32:41.400)

outside of the game.

Lex Fridman (1:32:42.680)

And then I start to get the itch.

Lex Fridman (1:32:43.800)

Like after the World Series of Poker,

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:46.760)

the poker door was closed.

Lex Fridman (1:32:47.960)

Yeah, you took some time off.

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:49.240)

All of August, I didn't play any poker at all

Lex Fridman (1:32:51.400)

until just recently, you know.

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:53.040)

I started to get the itch again.

Lex Fridman (1:32:54.440)

Because that's what's important for me,

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:55.800)

is if I don't have the itch and I don't want to play poker,

Lex Fridman (1:32:58.200)

then I'm not gonna be at my best.

Daniel Negreanu (1:32:59.680)

Once I start getting the itch,

Lex Fridman (1:33:01.400)

that's when I start to say,

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:02.480)

okay, let's start watching some of these streams.

Lex Fridman (1:33:04.600)

Let's see what my opponents are up to lately.

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:06.800)

And, you know, let's look at some solvers

Lex Fridman (1:33:09.280)

and different things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:33:10.920)

And you're doing pretty good.

Lex Fridman (1:33:12.360)

You came back and doing pretty good.

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:15.360)

Yeah, so far.

Lex Fridman (1:33:17.200)

Do you like being in front of the camera

Lex Fridman (1:33:18.560)

through the hell of the World Series of Poker this year?

Lex Fridman (1:33:21.600)

You filmed every single day.

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:23.160)

You did a vlog.

Lex Fridman (1:33:24.280)

Does that energize you?

Lex Fridman (1:33:25.360)

Is that exhausting?

Lex Fridman (1:33:26.200)

Because it's really beneficial to a huge amount of people.

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:28.360)

It energizes the poker community.

Lex Fridman (1:33:30.520)

But do you see it as a service

Lex Fridman (1:33:32.160)

or do you purely just love it?

Lex Fridman (1:33:34.640)

I've been comfortable on camera since I was a kid.

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:37.280)

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor.

Lex Fridman (1:33:39.120)

Like really, really young.

Lex Fridman (1:33:40.360)

And I was always comfortable in that environment.

Lex Fridman (1:33:42.960)

I think like that gives me a little bit of an advantage

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:45.720)

sometimes too, with these film events.

Lex Fridman (1:33:47.880)

Cause I'm comfortable with the mic on

Lex Fridman (1:33:49.240)

and on camera with the lights.

Lex Fridman (1:33:50.840)

And I think a lot of people maybe aren't

Daniel Negreanu (1:33:52.400)

with the knowledge that other people

Lex Fridman (1:33:53.880)

are gonna see what they're doing every day.

Lex Fridman (1:33:55.400)

So it's been so comfortable and easy for me.

Lex Fridman (1:33:57.080)

As far as the World Series goes

Lex Fridman (1:33:58.680)

and the vlogs and all the shooting,

Lex Fridman (1:34:00.680)

it's kind of therapeutic for me.

Lex Fridman (1:34:02.240)

It is essentially my version of journaling, right?

Lex Fridman (1:34:06.520)

So there's a lot of value, I think,

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:08.040)

in like at the end of a day doing a brain dump

Lex Fridman (1:34:10.120)

where you just write out and journal.

Lex Fridman (1:34:11.880)

But doing it on camera has this similar effect.

Lex Fridman (1:34:15.480)

And it also, when you make a mistake on your own,

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:19.600)

you're held accountable to you.

Lex Fridman (1:34:20.840)

But when I have to explain it to others,

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:23.280)

like here's what I did.

Lex Fridman (1:34:24.920)

And this is the mistake I made

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:26.240)

or whatever the case may be.

Lex Fridman (1:34:28.760)

It actually, I think that helps me.

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:31.000)

Yeah, so you're held responsible by a larger audience.

Lex Fridman (1:34:34.440)

I think it's like, so like I said,

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:35.640)

listen, I'm 47, my life is good.

Lex Fridman (1:34:38.400)

I don't have to be in this tournament.

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:39.560)

If I'm over it, I can just dump my chips off and go home.

Lex Fridman (1:34:42.920)

But I can't when I'm doing the vlog,

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:45.240)

like I have to actually answer to that.

Lex Fridman (1:34:49.120)

And it keeps me in line.

Lex Fridman (1:34:51.080)

How hard is it to win the main event

Lex Fridman (1:34:53.960)

of the World Series of Poker?

Lex Fridman (1:34:56.240)

So the main event of the World Series of Poker

Lex Fridman (1:34:57.600)

is the hardest event to win

Daniel Negreanu (1:34:59.320)

simply because of the sheer size of it.

Lex Fridman (1:35:01.640)

You're talking seven, 8,000 players, right?

Lex Fridman (1:35:04.320)

And a lot of landmines.

Lex Fridman (1:35:05.440)

And frankly, there are so many players

Daniel Negreanu (1:35:08.800)

that you've not played with before too.

Lex Fridman (1:35:10.840)

You play these high roller events, like the super ones,

Lex Fridman (1:35:12.880)

you get 30, 40 people, you know everybody, right?

Lex Fridman (1:35:15.360)

So you have an idea.

Daniel Negreanu (1:35:16.880)

You sit at the main event, you don't have any idea.

Lex Fridman (1:35:19.240)

This guy wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jersey

Lex Fridman (1:35:21.040)

and sunglasses, and he just raised you big.

Lex Fridman (1:35:23.200)

I don't know this guy, I don't know what he's about.

Lex Fridman (1:35:26.120)

So there's a lot of like, it's grueling too.

Lex Fridman (1:35:29.280)

You're seven, eight days where you're in the blender

Daniel Negreanu (1:35:32.720)

as you might say, so.

Lex Fridman (1:35:35.200)

So what's the structure?

Lex Fridman (1:35:36.120)

So it's $10,000 buy in or something like that.

Lex Fridman (1:35:38.640)

And there's a bunch of tables and you just keep playing.

Lex Fridman (1:35:41.960)

Like when is it over for a single table?

Lex Fridman (1:35:44.800)

Does it go?

Lex Fridman (1:35:45.640)

So the way that it works is this.

Lex Fridman (1:35:46.480)

So there's, let's say 8,000 players.

Lex Fridman (1:35:47.840)

And the way the main event works, unique to others,

Lex Fridman (1:35:50.180)

is there's various day ones you can play, right?

Lex Fridman (1:35:53.240)

So a day one, you're gonna play from noon

Lex Fridman (1:35:55.160)

till like midnight, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:35:57.320)

If you're still in, you bag up your chips

Lex Fridman (1:36:00.040)

and you'll come back for day two, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:36:02.080)

There's four different day ones, right?

Lex Fridman (1:36:04.360)

Now they'll all combine essentially to play on a day two.

Lex Fridman (1:36:07.040)

And at the end of the night, they redraw the tables.

Lex Fridman (1:36:09.800)

So you don't just win your table.

Daniel Negreanu (1:36:11.140)

If players get knocked out, tables break,

Lex Fridman (1:36:13.680)

they continue to be replaced.

Lex Fridman (1:36:15.280)

So you start with 8,000, then after day one,

Lex Fridman (1:36:18.120)

you've got 6,000, then you do the same.

Daniel Negreanu (1:36:20.940)

You play like a 12 hour day and you slowly whittle down.

Lex Fridman (1:36:25.360)

Day four, day three, day four, you're in the money.

Lex Fridman (1:36:28.520)

And then you continue to progress.

Lex Fridman (1:36:29.840)

And then what they do now with the final table is they,

Daniel Negreanu (1:36:32.480)

because they were trying to do this for TV,

Lex Fridman (1:36:34.360)

these final tables can take, you know, 12 hours to play.

Lex Fridman (1:36:38.760)

And what we were finding was, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:36:41.080)

you start the thing at 5 p.m. and it goes till 8 a.m.

Lex Fridman (1:36:44.560)

And like nobody's watching anymore.

Lex Fridman (1:36:45.960)

So they separate into three days now.

Lex Fridman (1:36:49.320)

And so you're talking now, it's like six, seven days

Lex Fridman (1:36:52.160)

to get to the final table and another three days to play it.

Lex Fridman (1:36:54.620)

So you're grinding for, you know, a week and a half.

Lex Fridman (1:36:58.840)

But most of the time you're playing against people

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:01.880)

you've never played against before.

Lex Fridman (1:37:03.840)

Especially early on, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:37:04.880)

And then by the end, like, who knows?

Lex Fridman (1:37:06.440)

You know, rarely do you see, you see in the last hundred,

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:09.580)

you usually see some notable names.

Lex Fridman (1:37:11.480)

Then in the last 27, you might see one, maybe two.

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:13.760)

Final table, maybe one.

Lex Fridman (1:37:15.460)

But often it's gonna be, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:17.600)

some players you've never heard of before.

Lex Fridman (1:37:20.040)

Is there strategies that maximize your likelihood

Lex Fridman (1:37:24.080)

of having a chance?

Lex Fridman (1:37:25.440)

Yes, absolutely.

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:26.400)

Like I think the World Series of Poker main event

Lex Fridman (1:37:28.000)

is a unique animal in that, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:30.280)

like we talk about game theory and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:37:32.360)

If you're focused on that when you're playing,

Lex Fridman (1:37:34.160)

you're really not playing well, right?

Lex Fridman (1:37:36.660)

You need to just exploit

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:38.280)

because you're gonna have a lot of people

Lex Fridman (1:37:39.600)

who see this as a bucket list item.

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:41.280)

You know, they just wanna play

Lex Fridman (1:37:42.120)

the main event in the World Series.

Lex Fridman (1:37:43.560)

And they might be scared, they might be nervous or whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:37:45.880)

You don't have to worry about being balanced, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:48.760)

Oh, you know, I have to make sure that I'm, no you don't.

Lex Fridman (1:37:51.160)

You might not, you're playing with this guy now

Daniel Negreanu (1:37:52.640)

for three hours, you might never see him again.

Lex Fridman (1:37:54.720)

So just make the play that makes sense for you, right?

Lex Fridman (1:37:57.680)

So yeah, you're gonna, I approach that event

Lex Fridman (1:38:01.000)

very differently than I would

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:02.640)

like playing against the high roller players

Lex Fridman (1:38:04.760)

that I play with today.

Lex Fridman (1:38:05.600)

Does that mean more aggressive essentially?

Lex Fridman (1:38:07.200)

Less actually.

Lex Fridman (1:38:08.760)

So when you play against really good players,

Lex Fridman (1:38:11.880)

you have to take small plus EV scenarios

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:15.440)

where you push the envelope

Lex Fridman (1:38:17.000)

and you're playing really aggressive.

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:18.120)

You're bluffing off your stack.

Lex Fridman (1:38:19.440)

You gotta do this.

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:20.280)

You gotta focus a little bit more on being balanced

Lex Fridman (1:38:22.720)

because otherwise, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:23.760)

you're not gonna beat these guys.

Lex Fridman (1:38:25.460)

Whereas if you're playing with amateurs

Lex Fridman (1:38:27.120)

and you're playing with regular players,

Lex Fridman (1:38:28.800)

for the most part, risking all your chips on a bluff,

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:33.200)

probably don't need to do that.

Lex Fridman (1:38:34.720)

You don't need to do that nearly as much.

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:35.760)

You can probably slowly but surely build your stack

Lex Fridman (1:38:39.360)

without taking, you know, those high risk,

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:41.160)

high variance situations

Lex Fridman (1:38:42.000)

because you'll find better situations.

Lex Fridman (1:38:44.060)

What mistakes do amateurs usually make

Lex Fridman (1:38:47.240)

in tournaments like that?

Lex Fridman (1:38:48.720)

Are they over bluffing?

Lex Fridman (1:38:50.160)

Well, I think amateurs generally,

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:52.300)

the biggest mistake they make is they think

Lex Fridman (1:38:53.720)

that pros are bluffing more than they are.

Lex Fridman (1:38:56.240)

So like a pro will bet all his chips on the end

Lex Fridman (1:38:57.960)

and they're like, ah, I don't know.

Daniel Negreanu (1:38:58.960)

Maybe, you know, it's Phil Ivey.

Lex Fridman (1:39:00.440)

Maybe he's doing some crazy stuff.

Daniel Negreanu (1:39:01.480)

He's like, probably not.

Lex Fridman (1:39:02.960)

He's probably just got it, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:39:05.760)

And then they lose all their money by calling

Lex Fridman (1:39:08.020)

or going all in as well.

Lex Fridman (1:39:12.760)

And so the right thing is to be more patient.

Lex Fridman (1:39:15.040)

So amateur is too impatient or just bad reads?

Lex Fridman (1:39:19.080)

So all the amateurs are built different.

Lex Fridman (1:39:21.160)

Some of the amateurs are just too weak and passive.

Lex Fridman (1:39:23.400)

They're just waiting for the nuts, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:39:25.440)

And then, you know, the pros, everyone notices that.

Lex Fridman (1:39:27.360)

And then when they make their big hand,

Lex Fridman (1:39:29.200)

they don't get paid anyway.

Lex Fridman (1:39:30.640)

So in order to win the main event,

Lex Fridman (1:39:32.840)

I mean, you have to have some components

Daniel Negreanu (1:39:35.000)

of your game that are aggressive.

Lex Fridman (1:39:36.520)

It's very unlikely to expect to just get the cards

Daniel Negreanu (1:39:39.960)

the whole way and just always have the best hand.

Lex Fridman (1:39:42.440)

You're gonna have to find ways to win pots

Daniel Negreanu (1:39:44.560)

that, you know, where you don't have the best hand.

Lex Fridman (1:39:47.080)

How do you win the final table?

Daniel Negreanu (1:39:49.640)

The final table is unique now,

Lex Fridman (1:39:51.200)

especially because you're talking about the way

Daniel Negreanu (1:39:53.440)

that poker works in tournaments is that

Lex Fridman (1:39:55.520)

if there's seven people left

Lex Fridman (1:39:56.900)

and you have just, you know, you're very short on chips.

Lex Fridman (1:39:59.560)

But if one other player goes out,

Daniel Negreanu (1:40:01.520)

you just make like $300,000 for folding,

Lex Fridman (1:40:04.640)

like just for sitting out, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:40:06.760)

The term for that that, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:40:08.800)

show kids uses ICM, independent, you know, chip model,

Daniel Negreanu (1:40:13.080)

right, where it talks about the value of each chip.

Lex Fridman (1:40:15.460)

Where what happens, what we see now is,

Daniel Negreanu (1:40:17.440)

let's say one guy has a big chip lead

Lex Fridman (1:40:19.600)

and there's another guy who's second in chips

Lex Fridman (1:40:21.340)

and there's a couple that are short.

Lex Fridman (1:40:22.760)

These guys in the middle, they just play super tight

Lex Fridman (1:40:25.960)

and they wait for the little guys to go

Lex Fridman (1:40:28.280)

while the big stack is just pounding them

Lex Fridman (1:40:31.600)

because he can afford to, right?

Lex Fridman (1:40:33.520)

He knows that people are handcuffed.

Lex Fridman (1:40:35.000)

So let's say I had 10 million in chips

Lex Fridman (1:40:36.840)

and you have 9 million in chips.

Lex Fridman (1:40:38.240)

And these guys have little chips.

Lex Fridman (1:40:39.160)

If I go all in on you, are you gonna call me

Lex Fridman (1:40:42.040)

and risk like, you know, guaranteed pay jumps

Lex Fridman (1:40:45.320)

of like moving up a few spots?

Lex Fridman (1:40:46.680)

So really the question comes down to like,

Lex Fridman (1:40:48.540)

are you the type of guy who just wants to inch up

Lex Fridman (1:40:51.440)

or are you gonna go for it?

Lex Fridman (1:40:52.920)

And you're gonna go for the win.

Daniel Negreanu (1:40:54.000)

I think ultimately there's some value

Lex Fridman (1:40:56.000)

in being the guy who says,

Daniel Negreanu (1:40:56.920)

you know, I don't care if I come seventh.

Lex Fridman (1:40:58.660)

I'm not worried about going from seventh to fifth.

Daniel Negreanu (1:41:01.440)

I'm here to win.

Lex Fridman (1:41:02.560)

And so you're saying like the guys that win

Daniel Negreanu (1:41:04.840)

will often be the ones that call there.

Lex Fridman (1:41:07.080)

So like, they're not just bullying the small stacks, they're.

Daniel Negreanu (1:41:10.800)

Well, they're the ones,

Lex Fridman (1:41:11.800)

no, they're the ones that are willing to risk it, right?

Lex Fridman (1:41:14.480)

So there are some people who, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:41:16.800)

if there's five left, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:41:19.800)

and they're third in chips

Lex Fridman (1:41:21.200)

and there's two guys very short

Lex Fridman (1:41:22.320)

and you, you know, they'll have ace king

Lex Fridman (1:41:24.280)

and someone moves, they'll just fold.

Daniel Negreanu (1:41:26.060)

They fold the hand because they wanna wait

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.760)

for those two other players to get broke.

Lex Fridman (1:41:30.620)

And that way they let you know, they make actual money.

Lex Fridman (1:41:32.280)

So you, I guess the thought process

Daniel Negreanu (1:41:33.640)

between winning first place

Lex Fridman (1:41:35.280)

and winning the most amount of money are different.

Lex Fridman (1:41:37.440)

They're conflicting, right?

Lex Fridman (1:41:39.240)

Because in order to like win,

Daniel Negreanu (1:41:41.360)

if you're just, if your focus is only on winning

Lex Fridman (1:41:43.180)

the tournament, you will make mistakes financially

Lex Fridman (1:41:45.040)

where you had guaranteed income for just folding, right?

Lex Fridman (1:41:47.680)

Let's say a guy has one chip left, you know, one chip

Lex Fridman (1:41:51.540)

and me and you have good chips

Lex Fridman (1:41:53.320)

and I go all in with you and I lose.

Daniel Negreanu (1:41:55.240)

Now that guy, you know, got the guaranteed,

Lex Fridman (1:41:57.680)

you know, he got the pay jump that I wouldn't have got.

Lex Fridman (1:41:59.460)

So there's some extremely stupid mistakes

Lex Fridman (1:42:00.840)

you can make from a financial perspective,

Lex Fridman (1:42:02.780)

but it's often at odds with, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:42:05.580)

giving yourself the best chance to actually come first.

Lex Fridman (1:42:08.720)

And in a tournament, especially the main event,

Lex Fridman (1:42:11.240)

especially the final table, it's all about coming in first.

Daniel Negreanu (1:42:15.080)

Well, I know because most of the people who make it,

Lex Fridman (1:42:17.520)

so like, you know, when you play these high rollers,

Daniel Negreanu (1:42:19.420)

these guys are accustomed to playing for a hundred thousand,

Lex Fridman (1:42:21.520)

they're, they're accustomed to this kind of money.

Lex Fridman (1:42:23.040)

So they're going to play, right?

Lex Fridman (1:42:24.240)

For the most, but you're talking about guys

Daniel Negreanu (1:42:25.760)

who bought into a $10,000 tournament,

Lex Fridman (1:42:27.240)

maybe never had a hundred K cash in their life.

Lex Fridman (1:42:29.600)

And now they're sitting there and it's like 1 million

Lex Fridman (1:42:32.500)

for fifth and 2 million for fourth.

Lex Fridman (1:42:35.480)

So like, they don't want to be fifth,

Lex Fridman (1:42:37.400)

they're just going to sit there and go, ah, I don't want.

Lex Fridman (1:42:39.640)

So they'll, they'll be under more financial pressure

Lex Fridman (1:42:41.760)

because they're not like your typical high roller

Daniel Negreanu (1:42:44.440)

type player.

Lex Fridman (1:42:45.260)

Are you still able to find the guts to take big risks?

Daniel Negreanu (1:42:48.920)

Yeah, see, I'm trying to win.

Lex Fridman (1:42:50.800)

Like, I think that gives me an advantage, frankly,

Daniel Negreanu (1:42:53.180)

where I might make decisions that are financially suboptimal

Lex Fridman (1:42:57.320)

because I'm trying to win,

Lex Fridman (1:42:58.880)

but there's also an inherent advantage to that.

Lex Fridman (1:43:01.040)

Like that again, something I watched and learned

Daniel Negreanu (1:43:04.040)

from a guy like Michael Adamo,

Lex Fridman (1:43:05.880)

where he takes advantage of these people playing

Lex Fridman (1:43:08.040)

so passively in these spots where he's like,

Lex Fridman (1:43:09.920)

I don't, I'm not trying to come, I'm going to win.

Daniel Negreanu (1:43:11.920)

I'm just going to bull bulldoze you.

Lex Fridman (1:43:14.120)

Cause I'm not worried about, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:43:16.160)

the small financial mistake of, you know, a pay jump.

Lex Fridman (1:43:21.520)

What advice could you give to, to beginning poker players?

Daniel Negreanu (1:43:25.560)

Actually at every level, how to get better,

Lex Fridman (1:43:27.760)

how to improve, how to improve their game.

Daniel Negreanu (1:43:30.240)

Obviously, as you said,

Lex Fridman (1:43:32.140)

it's easiest to get better in the beginning,

Lex Fridman (1:43:34.900)

but what advice would you give how to get better?

Lex Fridman (1:43:37.320)

So one of the ways, I mean,

Lex Fridman (1:43:38.320)

I think way back to the how I started, right?

Lex Fridman (1:43:40.200)

And there's so many resources and tools available right now

Lex Fridman (1:43:42.480)

to analyze hands, but when you play, right?

Lex Fridman (1:43:45.960)

And you find yourself in a situation or a hand

Daniel Negreanu (1:43:48.400)

that you're not really sure about,

Lex Fridman (1:43:49.320)

not because you had aces and went all in and you lost,

Daniel Negreanu (1:43:52.440)

like that's not interesting,

Lex Fridman (1:43:53.560)

but an interesting situation where you're not sure

Lex Fridman (1:43:55.200)

what you did, jot the hand down, write it out.

Lex Fridman (1:43:59.200)

And then either A, you know, use some of the tools,

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:02.000)

whether it's the solvers, if you're advanced enough,

Lex Fridman (1:44:04.800)

or ask your group, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:07.240)

like have a couple of friends at your level

Lex Fridman (1:44:09.080)

and talk through the different decisions

Lex Fridman (1:44:10.760)

and start to learn that way, right?

Lex Fridman (1:44:12.620)

Cause those mistakes that you make

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:13.860)

or those tough, those tough hands,

Lex Fridman (1:44:15.620)

that's where the real learning comes from.

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:17.280)

Like, so that next, so basically if you're,

Lex Fridman (1:44:19.720)

cause you're gonna be in similar scenarios.

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:21.480)

In poker, you're rarely gonna have the identical situation,

Lex Fridman (1:44:24.320)

but you'll have situations that are similar.

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:26.520)

You know, you raise with ace king, someone three bet,

Lex Fridman (1:44:28.600)

another guy goes all in.

Lex Fridman (1:44:29.760)

Okay, well, what do I do in that spot?

Lex Fridman (1:44:31.800)

You know, it's, you're gonna have similar situations

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:34.380)

in the future as well.

Lex Fridman (1:44:35.220)

So figuring that out, the more you can do that,

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:38.120)

you chop away at, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:44:40.680)

different strategical mistakes, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:42.640)

you used to make that you no longer make.

Lex Fridman (1:44:44.980)

Are there resources like your masterclasses really is great?

Lex Fridman (1:44:48.240)

Are there books?

Lex Fridman (1:44:49.980)

So there was a guy named Michael Acevedo.

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:51.840)

This is my, again, for a little bit more advanced players,

Lex Fridman (1:44:54.200)

but it's a book called a modern poker theory,

Daniel Negreanu (1:44:57.220)

I think it's called,

Lex Fridman (1:44:58.740)

which sort of explains game theory, right?

Lex Fridman (1:45:01.080)

To the novice, right?

Lex Fridman (1:45:02.840)

So it's a little bit, I think if you're new to poker,

Daniel Negreanu (1:45:05.320)

it's probably above the rim for you.

Lex Fridman (1:45:08.360)

But once you start to get a little better

Lex Fridman (1:45:09.960)

and you wanna understand how to do it,

Lex Fridman (1:45:11.580)

it's probably a good resource for as far as books.

Lex Fridman (1:45:13.360)

And there's also like tons of people

Lex Fridman (1:45:14.720)

who stream poker, professional players.

Lex Fridman (1:45:17.060)

And then you can get in there and you get in on the chat

Lex Fridman (1:45:19.040)

and you start talking, you ask them,

Daniel Negreanu (1:45:20.460)

you see people, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:45:21.680)

explaining their thought process and things like that.

Daniel Negreanu (1:45:23.880)

There's so many free resources.

Lex Fridman (1:45:25.360)

And of course my masterclass,

Daniel Negreanu (1:45:26.520)

I think does a good job of sort of compartmentalizing,

Lex Fridman (1:45:28.760)

like, you know, how to attack it on a deeper level.

Lex Fridman (1:45:32.440)

And we, you know, we get it, I try to get into,

Lex Fridman (1:45:34.600)

what's funny when I did the masterclass,

Daniel Negreanu (1:45:36.860)

I asked them, I was like, well, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:45:38.820)

how high end do you want this in terms of poker?

Lex Fridman (1:45:41.640)

And they're like, we want really, really high end.

Lex Fridman (1:45:42.960)

And I was like, okay, sure.

Daniel Negreanu (1:45:44.440)

Then I started to explain really, really high end.

Lex Fridman (1:45:46.040)

I'm like, okay, well, maybe the one below that, right?

Lex Fridman (1:45:50.400)

So I try to explain really complex, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:45:54.880)

theory in a more palatable way, in English, if you will.

Daniel Negreanu (1:45:58.800)

Cause some of these kids, you hear them talk

Lex Fridman (1:46:00.240)

and you'd be like, huh?

Lex Fridman (1:46:02.160)

But you also, which is really nice, give example hands

Lex Fridman (1:46:07.240)

that really illustrate the point, which is really nice.

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:10.440)

You also wrote a book, I think 10 years ago,

Lex Fridman (1:46:13.400)

Power Holding Strategy.

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:16.200)

It's interesting to think how much of the stuff

Lex Fridman (1:46:19.200)

in that book still applies, how much doesn't.

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:21.320)

Listen, I still think the book holds up to a certain degree.

Lex Fridman (1:46:23.720)

Obviously like, you know, it isn't optimal

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:26.400)

because there's like a more advanced strategies.

Lex Fridman (1:46:28.320)

And if you played that way,

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:29.280)

people will figure out a way to exploit you.

Lex Fridman (1:46:30.880)

But if you're like an average player playing

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:32.560)

an average buy ins, like that's sort of what I coined,

Lex Fridman (1:46:35.160)

like small ball approach, absolutely will work.

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:38.120)

You know, at the highest level,

Lex Fridman (1:46:39.800)

you have to add much more, a lot more bluffing.

Lex Fridman (1:46:42.340)

But overall, I think it's still, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:46:44.600)

for the most part, there's a lot of really,

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:45.760)

especially with tournaments,

Lex Fridman (1:46:46.640)

there's a lot of really good principles in the book.

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:48.920)

What's the difference in the dynamics,

Lex Fridman (1:46:50.680)

if you could just comment on between a heads up poker

Lex Fridman (1:46:53.920)

and when multiple people are in one hand,

Lex Fridman (1:46:56.520)

what are interesting aspects to everything

Daniel Negreanu (1:46:58.400)

we've been talking about from game theory

Lex Fridman (1:47:01.320)

to exploitative strategies, all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:47:04.620)

So the biggest difference when you play,

Lex Fridman (1:47:06.040)

let's say nine handed, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:07.700)

against eight other players and you know, heads up is,

Lex Fridman (1:47:11.200)

first of all, just the type of hands

Lex Fridman (1:47:13.720)

and the number of hands you're gonna have to play.

Lex Fridman (1:47:15.160)

So the way that it works is if there's nine people,

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:18.120)

two out of the nine hands, you have to put in money.

Lex Fridman (1:47:20.300)

And the other seven, you could just fold for nothing, okay?

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:22.760)

When you're heads up,

Lex Fridman (1:47:23.800)

you're forced to put money in every single hand, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:47:27.440)

And there's only one other hand in front of you,

Lex Fridman (1:47:29.720)

which means the ranges of hands that you play

Lex Fridman (1:47:31.720)

is way wider, right?

Lex Fridman (1:47:33.480)

So if you're nine handed, right?

Lex Fridman (1:47:35.040)

And you're in first position, you're like, all right,

Lex Fridman (1:47:36.720)

what do I need to play?

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:37.880)

Like a good pair, you know, two high cards suited,

Lex Fridman (1:47:41.680)

a big ace, you know, stuff like that, that's it, right?

Lex Fridman (1:47:44.160)

That's what you're gonna play, right?

Lex Fridman (1:47:46.320)

And you're gonna fold all the rest.

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:47.600)

When you're heads up, you look at a king and a two

Lex Fridman (1:47:50.600)

and you're like, well, I gotta play this.

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:52.360)

You know, you're gonna, you're gonna,

Lex Fridman (1:47:53.540)

you're forced to play a lot more hands

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:55.720)

in a lot more complex situations

Lex Fridman (1:47:57.400)

when you're playing heads up,

Daniel Negreanu (1:47:59.860)

because you're gonna be playing much far weaker hands.

Lex Fridman (1:48:02.520)

Queen five, Jack three, all these types of hands.

Lex Fridman (1:48:05.480)

And you're gonna see flops where you're,

Lex Fridman (1:48:06.920)

you're not gonna have the luxury of being like,

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:08.600)

I'm in there with a premium hand, queens, kings, aces.

Lex Fridman (1:48:11.680)

Those are easier to play, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:13.080)

Very, very strong holdings.

Lex Fridman (1:48:14.680)

Heads up, you're forced to dance and fight a lot more.

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:19.360)

You know, you can't sit in the weeds and wait.

Lex Fridman (1:48:21.520)

What do you enjoy more?

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:24.640)

Heads up is very intense.

Lex Fridman (1:48:25.700)

I like heads up, but I think if you had to play heads up

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:29.520)

eight, 10 hours, it's so mentally draining

Lex Fridman (1:48:31.960)

because your face with so many constant decisions

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:34.760)

each and every spot.

Lex Fridman (1:48:35.600)

Like you play nine handed, you look at a nine and a three,

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:37.980)

you throw it away, you hang out for a bit, relax,

Lex Fridman (1:48:40.720)

you go, you get a little break and then play hand.

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:42.240)

Heads up, you're like, it's like, boom, boom.

Lex Fridman (1:48:44.000)

It's like you're in the ring, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:45.200)

you're in the octagon and you're facing like

Lex Fridman (1:48:47.640)

haymakers nonstop.

Daniel Negreanu (1:48:50.680)

Since we talked about online a bit,

Lex Fridman (1:48:53.720)

is it possible to cheat in poker, especially online?

Lex Fridman (1:48:56.840)

So we offline also talked about the cheating controversy

Lex Fridman (1:49:00.320)

that's going on in the chess world.

Lex Fridman (1:49:02.120)

Is it possible to use, what is it?

Lex Fridman (1:49:06.660)

Remotely connected anal beads to somehow cheat?

Lex Fridman (1:49:10.980)

No, is that a concern of cheating online?

Lex Fridman (1:49:15.820)

So here's the thing, it's kind of like romanticized

Daniel Negreanu (1:49:19.140)

from the old days, like, you know, in the Western stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:49:21.280)

like people trying to cheat.

Lex Fridman (1:49:22.120)

And have you ever killed a man because he cheated?

Lex Fridman (1:49:24.140)

No, I have not.

Lex Fridman (1:49:25.100)

But when I started out as a teenager,

Lex Fridman (1:49:26.980)

I played in a game with a bunch of Italians

Lex Fridman (1:49:28.820)

and I knew they cheated and I didn't care

Lex Fridman (1:49:31.160)

because they were so bad that I could win anyway.

Daniel Negreanu (1:49:33.700)

I was like, I knew they would cheat,

Lex Fridman (1:49:34.780)

but I knew how they were cheating.

Lex Fridman (1:49:35.700)

So I was like, all right, you guys suck.

Lex Fridman (1:49:37.140)

But so here's the thing,

Daniel Negreanu (1:49:37.980)

anytime you're talking about large sums of money,

Lex Fridman (1:49:40.960)

there will be people looking to take advantage,

Lex Fridman (1:49:43.580)

whether that's live or online, right?

Lex Fridman (1:49:45.820)

And so it's like the job essentially of the, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:49:49.620)

the online operators or the, you know, live event staff

Lex Fridman (1:49:52.940)

to police it the best they can.

Lex Fridman (1:49:54.560)

And the players themselves being on the lookout for it.

Lex Fridman (1:49:56.620)

You know, like a guy like Dole Brunson is a great resource

Daniel Negreanu (1:49:58.940)

because he's seen it all and he's seen all the tricks,

Lex Fridman (1:50:01.500)

you know, and so live, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:50:02.900)

he probably could spot a few things.

Lex Fridman (1:50:04.460)

But online, there's various ways people can try to cheat,

Lex Fridman (1:50:07.500)

but there's also really good security measures in place

Lex Fridman (1:50:12.700)

to catch them, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:50:14.380)

And we've caught, you know, like about two years ago,

Lex Fridman (1:50:16.660)

there was a huge undertaking of like 500 accounts

Daniel Negreanu (1:50:20.420)

that were banned for doing different things.

Lex Fridman (1:50:22.700)

And, you know, there's, and again, you can't go in,

Daniel Negreanu (1:50:24.980)

they can't go into detail in terms of how they're doing it.

Lex Fridman (1:50:27.840)

Cause otherwise, you know, then you're sort of giving

Daniel Negreanu (1:50:29.940)

the cheats the playbook in terms of how to take advantage.

Lex Fridman (1:50:32.580)

But it's always gonna be a concern for poker

Lex Fridman (1:50:34.580)

wherever you play, right?

Lex Fridman (1:50:37.920)

But it's not something I'm worried about personally.

Lex Fridman (1:50:40.340)

So at the highest in person, and by the way,

Lex Fridman (1:50:42.460)

online there's really interesting algorithms

Daniel Negreanu (1:50:44.500)

that do some of the work in an automated way

Lex Fridman (1:50:46.660)

to detect, to flag things that are weird.

Lex Fridman (1:50:50.060)

But in person, it's just not something at the highest level

Lex Fridman (1:50:52.660)

that you're super concerned about.

Lex Fridman (1:50:54.220)

So it's not, it didn't quite infiltrate the poker world

Lex Fridman (1:50:58.100)

to a degree where it's a huge concern.

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:00.020)

Yeah, like, so here's the thing.

Lex Fridman (1:51:01.740)

I don't play in private games and whatever, right?

Lex Fridman (1:51:04.020)

But in private games, theoretically, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:51:06.200)

you could be in, if you don't trust the people

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:07.820)

you're playing with, like I've heard stories of people

Lex Fridman (1:51:09.900)

where, you know, they have an earpiece in

Lex Fridman (1:51:11.700)

that you can't see, right?

Lex Fridman (1:51:13.380)

And they have, you know, like RFID on the cards

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:17.140)

or something like that, and they have a phone reading it.

Lex Fridman (1:51:19.860)

So they have somebody in a truck telling them,

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:21.460)

you're gonna win this hand, you're gonna lose this hand.

Lex Fridman (1:51:23.060)

Like that happened in a private game.

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:24.860)

You know, and the guy, what's often funny

Lex Fridman (1:51:26.700)

about some of these people who cheat is they're so greedy

Lex Fridman (1:51:30.120)

and blatantly obvious that they get caught.

Lex Fridman (1:51:32.420)

Where if they use this tool in a more subtle way,

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:35.120)

they could probably continue to get away with it.

Lex Fridman (1:51:37.320)

But again, that's not something I worry about

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:39.620)

in a casino environment, you know, in these tournaments

Lex Fridman (1:51:42.740)

and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:51:43.860)

But if I was playing in private games,

Lex Fridman (1:51:45.820)

like if I came down to Texas and some guy,

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:48.180)

I got cheated in a game by a guy named Blackie Blackburn

Lex Fridman (1:51:51.560)

and Tex, I was at the Chimo Hotel, I was a teenager

Lex Fridman (1:51:55.460)

and they saw me playing, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:51:56.740)

I was making good money as a teenager.

Daniel Negreanu (1:51:58.420)

I had like a $13,000 bankroll, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:52:00.820)

and I went and played in this game with them

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:02.060)

in a private hotel room and found out later

Lex Fridman (1:52:04.220)

that the guy was a card mechanic, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:06.620)

he was dealing and he could, you know, deal you the hands

Lex Fridman (1:52:08.860)

and he knew what you had and stuff like that.

Lex Fridman (1:52:10.700)

So yeah, I remember, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:52:12.140)

I lost a big number in that game

Lex Fridman (1:52:14.500)

and it was a good learning lesson in terms of, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:52:16.980)

being wary of who you trust.

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:18.380)

Yeah, so if the dealer is in on it,

Lex Fridman (1:52:22.120)

that's one way you could cheat.

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:23.840)

It's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:52:25.440)

That's part of the reason that they cut.

Lex Fridman (1:52:27.440)

So like, you'll see like, there's a burn card

Lex Fridman (1:52:30.800)

because what would happen in, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:32.120)

maybe in the old days is like,

Lex Fridman (1:52:33.680)

if you're sitting in the one seat,

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:34.700)

I could lift the card and you could see it,

Lex Fridman (1:52:36.440)

the next card coming, right?

Lex Fridman (1:52:38.080)

So what they do is they have a card on top of it

Lex Fridman (1:52:40.040)

that you burn that isn't the card

Lex Fridman (1:52:41.200)

and then the next card is the one that comes face up.

Lex Fridman (1:52:44.020)

I just learned about the edge sorting thing

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:48.640)

that Phil Ivey and maybe others were involved with.

Lex Fridman (1:52:52.040)

I just, reading it at first was super interesting to me

Daniel Negreanu (1:52:55.680)

that you can exploit the imperfections

Lex Fridman (1:52:59.520)

in the printing of cards.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:01.560)

That was almost cool to me.

Lex Fridman (1:53:02.840)

That's almost not cheating because it's like.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:05.840)

That needs to be a movie.

Lex Fridman (1:53:07.280)

That needs to be a movie, yes.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:08.760)

Yeah, what happened with Phil Ivey in that whole case

Lex Fridman (1:53:10.760)

is it's a catastrophe, really.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:12.900)

It is such a horrible precedent.

Lex Fridman (1:53:14.840)

Cause here's what he did.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:15.780)

Phil Ivey shows up at the casino says,

Lex Fridman (1:53:17.300)

I want to play this game.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:18.160)

They say, okay, all right, I want to play with those decks.

Lex Fridman (1:53:20.600)

They say, okay, they agree to everything that he says.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:24.040)

He never touches the cards.

Lex Fridman (1:53:25.400)

He doesn't do anything outside of the fact

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:28.200)

that your cards that you supplied

Lex Fridman (1:53:30.360)

have imperfections on them and he can see them.

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:33.040)

Okay, so that increases his chances of winning.

Lex Fridman (1:53:35.680)

He could still lose theoretically, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:38.040)

Probably not, but he can lose.

Lex Fridman (1:53:39.860)

In theory, it just gives him a little bit of an edge

Lex Fridman (1:53:41.800)

and it's all stuff based on what you provided.

Lex Fridman (1:53:44.200)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:53:45.040)

So the idea that you offered a game, I accepted, I beat you

Lex Fridman (1:53:48.400)

and now you want to free roll me?

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:50.280)

That's disgusting.

Lex Fridman (1:53:51.680)

So for people who don't know, maybe you can elaborate

Lex Fridman (1:53:53.800)

and it's just fascinating to me,

Lex Fridman (1:53:55.160)

but you're exploiting the imperfections

Daniel Negreanu (1:53:57.280)

in the card patterns on the back

Lex Fridman (1:53:59.440)

and then they look different if you rotate it.

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.760)

And the fascinating thing too, when you shuffle,

Lex Fridman (1:54:04.840)

usually you don't rotate the cards

Lex Fridman (1:54:06.940)

so that you can see the sort of

Lex Fridman (1:54:11.440)

detect which cards are the strong cards by marking them

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:15.800)

by through rotating them.

Lex Fridman (1:54:17.800)

And the way you know they're rotated

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:19.240)

is because of the pattern imperfections.

Lex Fridman (1:54:21.480)

Yeah, so some of the cards, like you said,

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:23.280)

like they had that pattern on it

Lex Fridman (1:54:26.040)

and some of them, this was faulty cards on there,

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:28.400)

were not cut properly.

Lex Fridman (1:54:29.680)

So like the eights and nines had the card cut differently

Lex Fridman (1:54:33.860)

and those are important cards in this game,

Lex Fridman (1:54:35.600)

the eights and nines or whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:54:36.780)

So you could essentially,

Lex Fridman (1:54:37.620)

from looking at the back of the card,

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:39.280)

discern what it's gonna be.

Lex Fridman (1:54:41.800)

You do nothing in terms of like cheating yourself.

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:45.000)

You're not rigging the game.

Lex Fridman (1:54:45.840)

All you're doing is taking advantage of the fact

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:47.400)

that you're playing, you've offered me cards

Lex Fridman (1:54:49.600)

that are faulty.

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:51.280)

Can I just say that, of course, it would be Phil Ivey,

Lex Fridman (1:54:54.200)

who's the goat at the normal game

Daniel Negreanu (1:54:56.800)

who will figure out this particular thing.

Lex Fridman (1:54:58.840)

I mean, that's what, if you're into soccer,

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:00.600)

this Diego Maradona has that famous hand of God

Lex Fridman (1:55:03.840)

in the World Cup where he scores a goal with his hand.

Lex Fridman (1:55:07.200)

And so, of course, the referee didn't see it.

Lex Fridman (1:55:10.080)

They thought it was a header.

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:11.320)

So, I mean, part of the magic of the genius

Lex Fridman (1:55:14.340)

of the people at the top of the game

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:15.540)

is they're able to exploit all the flaws that are there.

Lex Fridman (1:55:20.560)

That's a beautiful thing to see.

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:21.400)

Well, see, Phil had, in his heyday,

Lex Fridman (1:55:24.200)

he had, he exploited weaknesses in casinos,

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:29.080)

systems all over the country.

Lex Fridman (1:55:31.000)

Like in one night, I don't know if you know this story.

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:33.000)

In one night, he would take a plane, a private plane,

Lex Fridman (1:55:35.600)

and fly to 30 different casinos all over the country.

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:38.720)

Cause he would have these deals where they're like,

Lex Fridman (1:55:40.160)

all right, we've got this big rich sucker

Daniel Negreanu (1:55:41.720)

who's gonna come here and play craps

Lex Fridman (1:55:43.080)

and he's gonna lose all our money.

Lex Fridman (1:55:44.200)

So he'd have this deal with one of the casinos

Lex Fridman (1:55:46.000)

where they'd be like, all right,

Lex Fridman (1:55:47.520)

you get 20% back up to half a million, right?

Lex Fridman (1:55:50.520)

So if you lose half a million, we'll give you back 100K.

Lex Fridman (1:55:53.480)

So he'd go to one casino in Tunica,

Lex Fridman (1:55:56.200)

he'd play half a million, win, win or lose, he would leave.

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:00.920)

They think they're gonna get him to stay,

Lex Fridman (1:56:02.400)

they get him a big room or whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:56:04.000)

So let's say he goes to Tunica, he loses half a million.

Lex Fridman (1:56:06.880)

Now he goes, he flies to Atlantic city,

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:08.760)

he wins half a million.

Lex Fridman (1:56:10.160)

He lost half a million and won half a million,

Lex Fridman (1:56:12.520)

but he got 100,000 back.

Lex Fridman (1:56:14.200)

So he's actually plus 100,000.

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:16.440)

Do that at 10 casinos a night,

Lex Fridman (1:56:17.920)

you're making a million dollars in free equity.

Lex Fridman (1:56:19.880)

And they would give him promotional chips

Lex Fridman (1:56:21.480)

and all these kinds of things and free flights

Lex Fridman (1:56:23.320)

and stuff like that.

Lex Fridman (1:56:24.200)

So he took advantage of the image

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:26.280)

that they're trying to exploit.

Lex Fridman (1:56:27.240)

So this is why I don't have any empathy for these casinos.

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:29.680)

Cause they're giving you free drinks,

Lex Fridman (1:56:31.480)

they're giving you, why do you think they're doing that?

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:33.400)

The kindness of their heart.

Lex Fridman (1:56:34.720)

They're trying to exploit you.

Lex Fridman (1:56:36.160)

So guess what?

Lex Fridman (1:56:37.080)

You lost at your own game, pay the piper.

Lex Fridman (1:56:39.640)

And I think it was crazy.

Lex Fridman (1:56:40.640)

Cause the judges in his case said,

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:43.120)

he did not cheat, but yeah, it's probably not right.

Lex Fridman (1:56:47.480)

Hold on.

Daniel Negreanu (1:56:48.360)

You just said he didn't cheat.

Lex Fridman (1:56:50.360)

That should be the end of the case.

Lex Fridman (1:56:52.520)

And then the casinos do the funny thing.

Lex Fridman (1:56:54.600)

I mentioned to you, I was just at the UFC

Lex Fridman (1:56:56.200)

and Dana White is a huge gambler.

Lex Fridman (1:56:59.960)

She's a blackjack gambler.

Lex Fridman (1:57:01.540)

And there's that famous situation

Lex Fridman (1:57:04.280)

where you got kicked out of a casino

Lex Fridman (1:57:05.800)

and the casinos do that kind of thing

Lex Fridman (1:57:07.040)

when you win too much.

Lex Fridman (1:57:08.520)

So he won some ridiculous amount of money.

Lex Fridman (1:57:10.920)

He bets like, I mean, he plays like millions of dollars

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:15.040)

on hands of blackjack, it's insane.

Lex Fridman (1:57:16.640)

And so he won really big and he got kicked out.

Lex Fridman (1:57:19.440)

Was he counting?

Lex Fridman (1:57:20.520)

No, no, he wasn't counting.

Lex Fridman (1:57:21.640)

So counting in blackjack here in Las Vegas

Lex Fridman (1:57:23.680)

is like the only game where they actually

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:25.460)

can ask you not to play.

Lex Fridman (1:57:26.860)

So like basically if you're counting cards, right?

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:28.880)

You could potentially have an edge in blackjack

Lex Fridman (1:57:30.400)

and there are some professionals who do that,

Lex Fridman (1:57:31.920)

but they get caught pretty quickly.

Lex Fridman (1:57:33.520)

And then they say, you can play craps,

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:34.720)

you can play whatever you want,

Lex Fridman (1:57:35.560)

but you can't play blackjack here anymore.

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:36.800)

No, I think, I don't think Dana White is counting.

Lex Fridman (1:57:38.960)

I think he was winning a lot.

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:40.240)

I guess they can claim that they believe you're counting

Lex Fridman (1:57:43.640)

because how do you really know if you're counting?

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:45.040)

Well, they easily, they figure it out.

Lex Fridman (1:57:47.120)

So basically they have an eye in the sky

Lex Fridman (1:57:48.280)

and they can see, so if you're varying your bet size, right?

Lex Fridman (1:57:51.000)

So there are certain spots where based on the cards

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:52.800)

that are out, let's say for example,

Lex Fridman (1:57:55.920)

a lot of the twos, threes and fours and fives

Daniel Negreanu (1:57:57.640)

have been coming out.

Lex Fridman (1:57:58.680)

So the deck is rich in face cards.

Lex Fridman (1:58:01.720)

That's very good for the player, right?

Lex Fridman (1:58:03.580)

So imagine you were betting 500 bucks

Lex Fridman (1:58:06.840)

and then all of a sudden you up your bet to 2000 or 5,000

Lex Fridman (1:58:09.980)

when the deck is rich.

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:11.080)

They know when the deck is rich in high cards

Lex Fridman (1:58:12.940)

because they keep a counter themselves.

Lex Fridman (1:58:14.720)

So if they notice a player increasing their bet sizes

Lex Fridman (1:58:17.280)

when the deck is good for them, it's a telltale sign.

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:20.240)

Interesting, I don't think Dana White would be counting.

Lex Fridman (1:58:22.640)

And so casinos don't kick you out

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:24.440)

if you don't often kick you out.

Lex Fridman (1:58:26.160)

Do they ever kick you out if you make too much money?

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:28.760)

Because you're playing millions of dollars that they.

Lex Fridman (1:58:30.640)

Unless they, they would never kick you out

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:32.280)

for making too much money, unless they suspect cheating.

Lex Fridman (1:58:34.360)

Because why would they?

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:35.280)

They have an advantage, they want the money back.

Lex Fridman (1:58:37.480)

It's not like you go in there, win 10 million,

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:38.640)

you're like, oh no, that's enough for us.

Lex Fridman (1:58:40.120)

What about if he was talking shit the whole time?

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:42.000)

I wonder.

Lex Fridman (1:58:42.840)

I don't think that would matter.

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:44.920)

Because in the long run, they'll get the money back.

Lex Fridman (1:58:48.100)

Exactly.

Daniel Negreanu (1:58:51.360)

You tweeted, if you watched Jersey Shore,

Lex Fridman (1:58:54.600)

Family Vacation, we would probably get along really well.

Lex Fridman (1:58:57.400)

What is it about, because I lived in Jersey for a while,

Lex Fridman (1:58:59.880)

what is it about Jersey Shore characters that you love?

Daniel Negreanu (1:59:03.360)

I just love that they're sort of, I love the debauchery.

Lex Fridman (1:59:06.560)

I think Pauly D's a fun guy, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:59:08.880)

and just like, it's just something like,

Lex Fridman (1:59:11.040)

it's just, it's what do you call it?

Daniel Negreanu (1:59:13.560)

It's trash TV, it's a guilty pleasure.

Lex Fridman (1:59:15.680)

But you can just watch the Snooki get drunk

Lex Fridman (1:59:17.520)

and fallen all over herself or whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:59:20.240)

Is that part, do you love that part of Vegas as well?

Daniel Negreanu (1:59:23.400)

Not really, I don't go out and stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:59:25.280)

but I just like the characters.

Daniel Negreanu (1:59:27.020)

I like that they have unique personalities.

Lex Fridman (1:59:30.080)

And I think we live in a world now

Daniel Negreanu (1:59:32.440)

where people are more and more careful of what they say

Lex Fridman (1:59:36.560)

and afraid of backlash and all that stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:59:38.440)

And it's kind of like an old school version of just like,

Lex Fridman (1:59:41.560)

say what you feel, it's okay,

Daniel Negreanu (1:59:43.240)

as long as your intent is good.

Lex Fridman (1:59:44.920)

And they haven't been canceled, if you will, which is good,

Lex Fridman (1:59:49.920)

but I feel like their type of behavior slowly but surely,

Lex Fridman (1:59:53.960)

like, cause they got a lot of flack originally

Daniel Negreanu (1:59:56.120)

for misrepresenting like Italian Americans

Lex Fridman (1:59:59.800)

or something like that.

Daniel Negreanu (20:00.960)

this is what you should do as a poker player in this spot.

Lex Fridman (20:02.720)

He wasn't doing that.

Daniel Negreanu (20:04.160)

He was doing what he thought was best

Lex Fridman (20:05.800)

and he was doing things outside the norm

Daniel Negreanu (20:07.120)

that again, in a vacuum, you could look at that

Lex Fridman (20:08.960)

and you go, that's incorrect.

Daniel Negreanu (20:10.920)

That he should not do.

Lex Fridman (20:11.920)

That is a clear cut mistake.

Daniel Negreanu (20:13.700)

Even, you know, the solvers or the computers

Lex Fridman (20:16.240)

or game theory would say, this is wrong what he's doing.

Lex Fridman (20:18.520)

But it's not wrong if he's doing it in a way

Lex Fridman (20:21.400)

that he's exploiting other players tendencies.

Lex Fridman (20:24.200)

So for example, with him,

Lex Fridman (20:26.200)

say he's playing far too aggressively, okay?

Daniel Negreanu (20:28.640)

That's not good unless your opponents

Lex Fridman (20:31.280)

are playing way too passively.

Lex Fridman (20:33.000)

So if your opponents are playing passively,

Lex Fridman (20:34.720)

the answer is to be more aggressive with them.

Lex Fridman (20:36.420)

And that's, I think one of the, you know,

Lex Fridman (20:38.000)

biggest advantages he had was he was willing to do that.

Lex Fridman (20:40.820)

So bet huge, big, big pots bluffing.

Lex Fridman (20:44.440)

Huge.

Lex Fridman (20:45.280)

So in a spot where somebody would make it a thousand,

Lex Fridman (20:47.520)

he's making it 22,000.

Lex Fridman (20:49.440)

Like what?

Lex Fridman (20:50.440)

What is this?

Daniel Negreanu (20:51.280)

This makes no sense.

Lex Fridman (20:52.120)

And then people kind of know he has nothing,

Lex Fridman (20:53.720)

but they're too afraid to call him on it.

Lex Fridman (20:56.340)

Well, and then sometimes what happens is

Daniel Negreanu (20:58.160)

this is where the leveling comes in.

Lex Fridman (20:59.320)

You're like, man, this guy's crazy.

Daniel Negreanu (21:00.560)

He's bluffing like nuts.

Lex Fridman (21:01.600)

Then he bets the 22,000 and you say,

Daniel Negreanu (21:04.000)

ah, I'm taking my stand.

Lex Fridman (21:05.240)

I call, and then he shows you like, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (21:07.720)

four of a kind or something like that.

Lex Fridman (21:09.480)

So he gets people out of their comfort zone.

Lex Fridman (21:11.160)

And I really enjoy watching him play.

Lex Fridman (21:12.560)

He's probably my favorite player to watch today.

Daniel Negreanu (21:15.800)

Watching a guy like that,

Lex Fridman (21:16.880)

what aspect of his play have you been able

Lex Fridman (21:19.280)

to incorporate into your own?

Lex Fridman (21:20.800)

Like, what do you learn from that?

Daniel Negreanu (21:22.120)

Cause you're constantly learning,

Lex Fridman (21:23.000)

you're constantly adjusting.

Daniel Negreanu (21:23.960)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (21:24.800)

Well, no, and I love it.

Lex Fridman (21:25.620)

And as I said, so I think a lot of players

Lex Fridman (21:27.160)

sort of come to the same conclusions about

Daniel Negreanu (21:28.840)

this is how you play the spot, but he doesn't.

Lex Fridman (21:30.760)

And I love watching and thinking in terms of like,

Lex Fridman (21:32.760)

why he's doing this.

Lex Fridman (21:33.800)

And one specific thing, for example,

Daniel Negreanu (21:35.480)

is he's willing to really go for it.

Lex Fridman (21:38.320)

So in a spot where let's say he bets 2000,

Lex Fridman (21:40.680)

he knows he'll get you to call 2000, right?

Lex Fridman (21:43.760)

But he wants it all.

Daniel Negreanu (21:45.480)

He wants it all.

Lex Fridman (21:46.360)

So he says, you know what?

Daniel Negreanu (21:47.800)

I'll give up the 2000 that's guaranteed

Lex Fridman (21:50.320)

and I'll bet 50,000.

Lex Fridman (21:52.780)

And maybe if you call that now, you know,

Lex Fridman (21:54.580)

so listen, you lose the 2007, eight times,

Lex Fridman (21:57.080)

but if I get called for the 50 just once,

Lex Fridman (21:59.680)

you know, I'm profiting from that.

Lex Fridman (22:01.280)

And it also sets the, you know, the template for you

Lex Fridman (22:05.120)

to really sort of be a player

Daniel Negreanu (22:07.040)

that people are afraid to play against.

Lex Fridman (22:08.120)

He knocked me out in a tournament very early on

Daniel Negreanu (22:11.080)

in a huge event.

Lex Fridman (22:12.200)

And he had, he was so far ahead.

Daniel Negreanu (22:14.400)

He was one step ahead of my thought process in hand.

Lex Fridman (22:17.520)

And he did something that makes no sense whatsoever.

Daniel Negreanu (22:19.920)

I looked it up on the computer.

Lex Fridman (22:21.400)

Huge mistake, if you will, but not a mistake

Daniel Negreanu (22:24.320)

because he was taking advantage of my tendency.

Lex Fridman (22:25.880)

Do you remember the cars?

Lex Fridman (22:26.800)

Is there an example?

Lex Fridman (22:27.640)

I remember the whole thing.

Daniel Negreanu (22:28.460)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (22:29.300)

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Lex Fridman (22:30.760)

Can you take it like through an example hand

Lex Fridman (22:33.200)

that really demonstrates it?

Lex Fridman (22:34.800)

So I'll explain the hand here.

Lex Fridman (22:36.240)

So I'm on the button and I have ace king,

Daniel Negreanu (22:39.440)

which is a very good hand.

Lex Fridman (22:40.800)

And I raise and he calls from the big blind.

Daniel Negreanu (22:43.800)

The flop is nine, seven, five.

Lex Fridman (22:45.440)

So I have nothing really here.

Daniel Negreanu (22:47.040)

He checks, I check behind.

Lex Fridman (22:49.240)

The turn card's an ace.

Daniel Negreanu (22:51.320)

He checks, I bet half the pot.

Lex Fridman (22:53.560)

There were 6,000 there, I bet 3,000, okay?

Daniel Negreanu (22:56.820)

Now this is not a typical thing you see people do,

Lex Fridman (22:59.140)

but he raised me to 36,000.

Daniel Negreanu (23:01.760)

Massive raise, bigger than the size of the pot.

Lex Fridman (23:04.560)

What was the flop again?

Daniel Negreanu (23:05.720)

Nine, seven, five, turn an ace.

Lex Fridman (23:08.000)

What is he representing exactly?

Daniel Negreanu (23:10.040)

Well, he could have a straight,

Lex Fridman (23:10.880)

he could have three, three of a kind.

Daniel Negreanu (23:12.200)

He could have, you know, aces up.

Lex Fridman (23:13.600)

He could have a whole bunch of hands.

Lex Fridman (23:14.760)

So he check raises me big to 36,000.

Lex Fridman (23:16.960)

I call the bet.

Lex Fridman (23:18.160)

So now there's something like 75,000.

Lex Fridman (23:20.040)

The river is a five.

Lex Fridman (23:23.640)

So the board pairs, okay?

Lex Fridman (23:26.840)

He thinks for a while and he bets all of it,

Daniel Negreanu (23:29.040)

which is three times the pot.

Lex Fridman (23:30.600)

He bets 225,000.

Lex Fridman (23:32.300)

There's only 75,000 out there, right?

Lex Fridman (23:34.720)

And in theory, he should never ever have a hand

Lex Fridman (23:36.960)

that can do that, right?

Lex Fridman (23:38.640)

So it confused me.

Lex Fridman (23:39.960)

And I was like, okay, well, this guy's aggressive.

Lex Fridman (23:41.840)

He likes to bluff and all this kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (23:43.220)

So I made the call with the ace king

Lex Fridman (23:45.280)

and he turned over six, eight.

Lex Fridman (23:47.200)

So we had a straight, but here's the thing.

Lex Fridman (23:49.720)

In theory, that river card is bad for him.

Daniel Negreanu (23:52.920)

When I call the turn, I have a lot of the time,

Lex Fridman (23:55.980)

three of a kind, two pair that just made a full house.

Lex Fridman (23:58.320)

So he was risking that.

Lex Fridman (23:59.640)

And the reason he did it was

Daniel Negreanu (24:01.300)

because he thought I would perceive him to be bluffing a lot.

Lex Fridman (24:05.480)

So he just went for it and it worked.

Daniel Negreanu (24:07.520)

He was able to double up right away

Lex Fridman (24:09.240)

and knock me out of the tournament like an hour in.

Lex Fridman (24:11.160)

Do you think he thought you might fold?

Lex Fridman (24:12.600)

Like what is it?

Daniel Negreanu (24:13.440)

I think specific, I think it was, it came down to this.

Lex Fridman (24:15.120)

It's as simple as this.

Daniel Negreanu (24:17.000)

He was cognizant of his image

Lex Fridman (24:19.580)

as being a wild, aggressive bluffer, right?

Lex Fridman (24:21.680)

And he was fully taking advantage of me,

Lex Fridman (24:24.240)

knowing that my tendency in these spots is to be curious.

Lex Fridman (24:27.540)

And I want to call and I want to see it.

Lex Fridman (24:29.400)

So he was fully taking advantage of the fact

Daniel Negreanu (24:31.760)

that he thought I would call too often.

Lex Fridman (24:33.520)

Because otherwise his play makes no sense.

Daniel Negreanu (24:35.800)

A small bet, a medium sized bet, those make sense.

Lex Fridman (24:39.000)

But the bet that he made in theory is indefensible.

Daniel Negreanu (24:42.800)

It's just like clearly a mistake.

Lex Fridman (24:45.140)

But that's why poker is so fascinating

Daniel Negreanu (24:47.040)

because he makes this play and it wasn't a mistake.

Lex Fridman (24:48.880)

It was above the rim, is what it was.

Lex Fridman (24:50.840)

Do you think he put you on ace something?

Lex Fridman (24:53.300)

I think exactly what he thought I had,

Daniel Negreanu (24:54.760)

was ace king or something like that.

Lex Fridman (24:57.160)

You know?

Daniel Negreanu (24:58.000)

That is so fun.

Lex Fridman (24:58.840)

That is so fun that the two players at such a high level

Daniel Negreanu (25:01.240)

were able to mess with each other's mind.

Lex Fridman (25:03.720)

How old is he?

Lex Fridman (25:04.540)

Is he young?

Lex Fridman (25:05.380)

He's in his 20s, yeah.

Daniel Negreanu (25:06.200)

I feel like that takes a lot of guts

Lex Fridman (25:07.760)

to take risks like that.

Daniel Negreanu (25:10.040)

Well, that's what's great about him.

Lex Fridman (25:11.280)

He's certainly never accused

Daniel Negreanu (25:12.480)

of not having the guts to put it in.

Lex Fridman (25:13.840)

And that's scary to play against, right?

Daniel Negreanu (25:15.540)

The easiest opponent to play against

Lex Fridman (25:17.000)

is one who's just straightforward,

Daniel Negreanu (25:18.940)

passive, you know, not wild and crazy.

Lex Fridman (25:21.660)

Playing against him,

Daniel Negreanu (25:23.120)

he's going to put you in the blender, as we say.

Lex Fridman (25:25.080)

Yeah, how can you control

Lex Fridman (25:28.840)

what you're perceived as representing?

Lex Fridman (25:31.960)

What hand you're perceived of as representing?

Lex Fridman (25:34.360)

So if we're, if the game of modern poker is,

Lex Fridman (25:38.400)

others are representing certain hands

Daniel Negreanu (25:40.560)

through the information they convey,

Lex Fridman (25:42.280)

and you're representing a certain hand range, sorry,

Lex Fridman (25:45.840)

through your play, how can you control that?

Lex Fridman (25:47.540)

Or is that not, is that the wrong way to think about it?

Lex Fridman (25:50.740)

But isn't bluffing and bet sizing

Lex Fridman (25:54.200)

and all of that kind of stuff essentially controlling

Lex Fridman (25:57.400)

what others perceive as the hand range you have?

Lex Fridman (26:01.200)

Ultimately, in terms of like controlling

Daniel Negreanu (26:04.000)

people's perception of you, you can't fully control it,

Lex Fridman (26:06.520)

but you can do things to sway it, right?

Daniel Negreanu (26:10.720)

As I said earlier, showing bluffs and things like that,

Lex Fridman (26:12.880)

you know, leads your opponent to think

Daniel Negreanu (26:14.160)

maybe you do this more often than you're supposed to

Lex Fridman (26:16.240)

or whatever the case may be.

Lex Fridman (26:17.080)

But in terms of like controlling, you know,

Lex Fridman (26:21.220)

what your opponent can think about your hands

Daniel Negreanu (26:24.620)

in certain spots, I don't really think it equates that way.

Lex Fridman (26:26.420)

It doesn't really, you know, I think what people do

Daniel Negreanu (26:28.260)

when they're playing a hand is they think in terms of,

Lex Fridman (26:29.980)

all right, what does my range look like here?

Daniel Negreanu (26:33.100)

Okay, so my range has value.

Lex Fridman (26:35.460)

So you look at, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (26:36.660)

the actual hand you have secondarily.

Lex Fridman (26:38.880)

So you say, okay, well, I could have this,

Lex Fridman (26:41.340)

I could have this, I actually have this, right?

Lex Fridman (26:43.780)

But I could have all these hands.

Lex Fridman (26:44.860)

So my opponent, if he's thinking on a high level,

Lex Fridman (26:46.780)

he knows I could have all these hands and I have this one.

Lex Fridman (26:49.080)

So what do I do with this one, right, in the bigger scope

Lex Fridman (26:51.380)

of things?

Daniel Negreanu (26:52.220)

I guess I'm trying to understand if your betting

Lex Fridman (26:55.860)

isn't a bet, preflop, your bet,

Lex Fridman (26:58.980)

doesn't that narrow the hand ranges?

Lex Fridman (27:01.500)

Doesn't matter what you have, it narrows the end.

Daniel Negreanu (27:04.660)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (27:05.540)

And if you bet big combined with the perception of you

Lex Fridman (27:11.820)

at the table, doesn't that represent the hand range?

Lex Fridman (27:14.720)

Uh huh, absolutely.

Lex Fridman (27:16.020)

So like you can, with betting essentially control

Lex Fridman (27:18.240)

what people estimate you to have.

Daniel Negreanu (27:20.220)

Sure, so that makes it, so yeah, so that's true.

Lex Fridman (27:23.380)

So for example, one of the most extreme examples is,

Daniel Negreanu (27:26.440)

we have, there's spots where there's a bet

Lex Fridman (27:29.660)

that's considered polarizing, right?

Lex Fridman (27:31.920)

So let's say there's a thousand in the pot

Lex Fridman (27:34.540)

and you bet 10,000, which is crazy big, right?

Daniel Negreanu (27:37.380)

That's saying one of two things.

Lex Fridman (27:38.580)

I either have the absolute best possible hand

Daniel Negreanu (27:41.380)

or absolutely nothing,

Lex Fridman (27:42.700)

because any of the hands in the middle,

Daniel Negreanu (27:44.140)

I wouldn't do that with.

Lex Fridman (27:45.540)

So I'm essentially telling you when I bet that,

Daniel Negreanu (27:47.980)

I'm like, I either got it or I got,

Lex Fridman (27:51.220)

I don't have a mediocre hand,

Daniel Negreanu (27:52.540)

like just a pair of nines or a pair of tens.

Lex Fridman (27:54.520)

I have a royal flush or have nine high.

Lex Fridman (27:57.820)

So with my bet sizing,

Lex Fridman (27:59.620)

I can control how my opponent is perceiving

Lex Fridman (28:02.540)

what my range is gonna be.

Lex Fridman (28:03.380)

So for example, similarly, if I bet small, right?

Lex Fridman (28:07.220)

Well, that could be a lot of hands, right?

Lex Fridman (28:09.540)

That could represent a big part of my range.

Daniel Negreanu (28:12.180)

The bigger the bet, the more, the narrower the range.

Lex Fridman (28:14.740)

Apparently the more polarized it is.

Daniel Negreanu (28:16.220)

Yeah, how far could you get

Lex Fridman (28:19.380)

without looking at your cards?

Lex Fridman (28:20.580)

Do you think how well could you do?

Lex Fridman (28:22.700)

It depends on who I'm playing with, right?

Lex Fridman (28:24.740)

So if I was playing in a tournament

Lex Fridman (28:26.380)

with mediocre or weak players,

Daniel Negreanu (28:28.320)

I think I could probably do pretty well.

Lex Fridman (28:30.620)

But even like world class.

Daniel Negreanu (28:32.420)

World class, I don't think you'd have much of a chance,

Lex Fridman (28:34.380)

really, I mean.

Daniel Negreanu (28:35.220)

The question is trying to get at like,

Lex Fridman (28:36.580)

how important is it that the actual hands you have

Lex Fridman (28:39.060)

versus the hands you're representing?

Lex Fridman (28:41.900)

Right, so that's the question of essentially,

Daniel Negreanu (28:43.460)

if you're not looking at your hand preflop,

Lex Fridman (28:45.100)

you're basically giving up a fundamental advantage, right?

Daniel Negreanu (28:48.260)

Where you're gonna be playing way suboptimally

Lex Fridman (28:50.660)

in terms of your hand selection, right?

Daniel Negreanu (28:52.080)

Cause if you don't look at your hand,

Lex Fridman (28:53.420)

you might have a two and a three.

Daniel Negreanu (28:54.880)

That's not good, but now you're playing it.

Lex Fridman (28:56.940)

So you've invested whatever, two, 3000 bucks

Daniel Negreanu (28:59.620)

with absolute garbage,

Lex Fridman (29:01.060)

and it's very difficult to climb that hill, right?

Lex Fridman (29:03.700)

So it's much better to actually look at your cards

Lex Fridman (29:05.540)

and go, okay, I'll throw away the two and three

Lex Fridman (29:07.340)

and I'll play the ace king.

Lex Fridman (29:08.860)

Speaking of garbage, you've said that 10, seven

Daniel Negreanu (29:12.140)

is your favorite poker hand to play.

Lex Fridman (29:13.580)

Is that still the case and what aspect of it

Lex Fridman (29:16.840)

is that you enjoy?

Lex Fridman (29:18.820)

Yeah, so it's one of those viewer discretion is advised.

Daniel Negreanu (29:21.580)

Like 10, seven, I've just noticed throughout my life,

Lex Fridman (29:24.340)

you know, it's a tendency thing that I've been lucky with it.

Lex Fridman (29:27.280)

So that's just sort of,

Lex Fridman (29:28.180)

but it's not like I'm gonna look at 10, seven and go,

Daniel Negreanu (29:30.220)

oh, wow, you know, I'm gonna call it all in

Lex Fridman (29:32.300)

or anything like that.

Daniel Negreanu (29:33.260)

I'll play it in situations where it makes sense,

Lex Fridman (29:35.740)

but you know, it's rare cause it's not a very good hand.

Lex Fridman (29:38.260)

But is there some aspect of belief

Lex Fridman (29:42.960)

in the magic of this hand manifests quality of play?

Lex Fridman (29:47.020)

Or is that a little?

Lex Fridman (29:47.860)

There should be.

Lex Fridman (29:48.700)

So here's the thing, it's, you know,

Lex Fridman (29:49.940)

poker players, some have said

Daniel Negreanu (29:51.460)

it's unlucky to be superstitious,

Lex Fridman (29:53.340)

but we're all a little bit superstitious, a little bit.

Daniel Negreanu (29:55.940)

You know, and so I don't know,

Lex Fridman (29:57.300)

maybe it is a case where when I have 10, seven,

Daniel Negreanu (29:59.240)

I feel somehow energetically that, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:00:00.640)

Like there was a lot of backlash about this

Lex Fridman (2:00:02.160)

and how Italian Americans really are and blah, blah, blah.

Lex Fridman (2:00:04.960)

So they sort of were representing that group of people

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:08.740)

and, you know, they received some backlash back in the day.

Lex Fridman (2:00:13.160)

I'm a huge supporter of diversity

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:15.800)

in all the beautiful forms that the human species

Lex Fridman (2:00:19.120)

is able to generate.

Lex Fridman (2:00:20.000)

And that's certainly one dimension.

Lex Fridman (2:00:22.020)

What's the greatest Vegas movie, would you say?

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:25.180)

I don't know if that's a difficult question,

Lex Fridman (2:00:26.500)

but Fear of Loathing in Las Vegas,

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:28.680)

Leaving Las Vegas, Casino.

Lex Fridman (2:00:30.520)

I watch, cause anytime Casino's on randomly,

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:32.540)

I always watch it.

Lex Fridman (2:00:33.720)

Such a great movie.

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:35.800)

It could be one of the Sharon Stone.

Lex Fridman (2:00:38.040)

Sharon, frankly, Sharon Stone reminded me,

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:41.320)

every time I would watch the movie,

Lex Fridman (2:00:42.160)

it reminded me of my wife, Amanda, like totally.

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:45.600)

I would see like the character and I was like,

Lex Fridman (2:00:47.340)

I'm the Robert De Niro character in the film.

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:49.440)

It was, I used to watch it through that lens, you know.

Lex Fridman (2:00:52.960)

From like the depth of love that you have.

Daniel Negreanu (2:00:57.320)

Just kind of, she was, I remember that she was like,

Lex Fridman (2:01:00.020)

she was like, she lit up every room.

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:01.900)

She does light up every room.

Lex Fridman (2:01:03.080)

She goes there, everybody's attracted and drawn to her.

Lex Fridman (2:01:05.600)

And she was kind of, when she was younger,

Lex Fridman (2:01:07.220)

she was a little wild and crazy and whatnot.

Lex Fridman (2:01:09.240)

So she reminded me of the Sharon Stone character.

Lex Fridman (2:01:11.680)

And then the Robert De Niro character is trying to like

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:13.920)

have a stable life, you know, and be that.

Lex Fridman (2:01:16.040)

And that was me.

Lex Fridman (2:01:17.400)

Who was the Joe Pesci in your life?

Lex Fridman (2:01:19.000)

Well, there was a guy named,

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:19.840)

there was a James Woods for sure, who was the Lester.

Lex Fridman (2:01:22.520)

We called him, we actually called him Lester.

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:24.800)

A few of my friends call him Lester.

Lex Fridman (2:01:27.640)

The greasy guy who tried to get back in and all that.

Lex Fridman (2:01:31.360)

But yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:01:32.200)

Yeah, one of my favorite scenes

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:33.040)

is when they meet out in the desert

Lex Fridman (2:01:35.240)

and it's like a 50, 50 odds

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:36.600)

if you're gonna make it out alive in that.

Lex Fridman (2:01:38.360)

I mean, yeah, there's an epicness to that portrayal of Vegas.

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:43.400)

I love, I mean, it's just totally,

Lex Fridman (2:01:45.400)

I mean, it's obviously more corporate now

Lex Fridman (2:01:46.760)

and it's different, but I love those movies.

Lex Fridman (2:01:49.440)

I love all those movies, just seeing that life.

Lex Fridman (2:01:51.440)

And like I said, if there was a period in time

Lex Fridman (2:01:53.080)

that I could go back to and just experience it,

Daniel Negreanu (2:01:55.360)

it would be that, you know, right around then.

Lex Fridman (2:01:56.760)

There'll be that, playing with a mob and not.

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:00.180)

I think of like these crime shows today,

Lex Fridman (2:02:01.960)

like they're so unrealistic now

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:04.000)

because if they're in an era that is now,

Lex Fridman (2:02:06.620)

like none of this stuff can happen

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:08.240)

because there's cameras everywhere.

Lex Fridman (2:02:09.660)

You can't like get away with these,

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:11.000)

like killing somebody and jumping in a car

Lex Fridman (2:02:13.640)

and you're gonna get caught, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:02:15.840)

But in the 70s, you know, that stuff happened.

Lex Fridman (2:02:18.200)

Across the line, you die.

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:19.600)

Yeah, Lake Mead is recently like losing water

Lex Fridman (2:02:22.800)

and like every couple of days

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:24.240)

they're finding more and more bodies from that era.

Lex Fridman (2:02:26.720)

Oh no.

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:27.560)

They really are.

Lex Fridman (2:02:29.280)

You're close with your mom.

Lex Fridman (2:02:30.840)

What did you learn about life from your mom?

Lex Fridman (2:02:33.280)

My mother was very generous.

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:35.000)

My mother, she experienced joy through giving people food.

Lex Fridman (2:02:39.920)

For the most part, my dad would get them drinks

Lex Fridman (2:02:42.080)

and that was how she felt fulfilled, right?

Lex Fridman (2:02:45.600)

She felt good when she like would cook for you.

Lex Fridman (2:02:47.440)

And like, she'd be that person you'd come over

Lex Fridman (2:02:49.400)

and she'd be like, are you hungry?

Lex Fridman (2:02:50.760)

And you say, no, no, no, I'm okay.

Lex Fridman (2:02:51.960)

She's gonna put 15 things in front of you and you'll eat.

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:54.760)

You know, you're gonna eat.

Lex Fridman (2:02:55.600)

Cause everyone does that to be polite.

Daniel Negreanu (2:02:56.840)

No, no, I'm good.

Lex Fridman (2:02:57.760)

But you know, they will start to eat.

Lex Fridman (2:02:59.520)

And just her hospitality in that regard

Lex Fridman (2:03:01.520)

and just being generous and like being a good host

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:04.440)

to people and things like that, like.

Lex Fridman (2:03:07.520)

How did that define, like help define who you are

Lex Fridman (2:03:10.560)

as a person, that generosity?

Lex Fridman (2:03:13.040)

Did it rub off on you?

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:14.520)

It made me think about in my life

Lex Fridman (2:03:17.440)

when it comes to like any sort of business deals

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:21.520)

or things like that, I don't wanna get the best of it

Lex Fridman (2:03:23.920)

in such a way where I screw the other person.

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:25.600)

I genuinely don't.

Lex Fridman (2:03:26.920)

I'd much rather you owe me than me owe you.

Lex Fridman (2:03:29.400)

So if I hire people, they get paid more

Lex Fridman (2:03:32.160)

than they're supposed to.

Lex Fridman (2:03:33.160)

And I'd rather them do that and work towards it

Lex Fridman (2:03:36.040)

rather than feel underpaid.

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:37.200)

Cause if they're underpaid, they'll likely under deliver.

Lex Fridman (2:03:39.480)

Whereas if they feel overpaid,

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:41.160)

then if I need them to do something special,

Lex Fridman (2:03:43.280)

they're not gonna be like, hey, I don't get paid for that.

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:45.240)

Like, yeah, you do.

Lex Fridman (2:03:46.720)

You really do.

Lex Fridman (2:03:47.560)

So that's certainly like played out in my life

Lex Fridman (2:03:49.840)

where I set it up in such a way where I don't owe,

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:53.080)

you know, I'm owed, but that's okay.

Lex Fridman (2:03:56.080)

Cause I can handle taking the worst of it in spots.

Daniel Negreanu (2:03:58.600)

I don't like being the person to, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:04:01.840)

feel like I'm indebted to others.

Daniel Negreanu (2:04:04.320)

Yeah, in some way, the karma of that tends

Lex Fridman (2:04:06.840)

to pay dividends in the longterm.

Daniel Negreanu (2:04:09.360)

Somehow there's somebody up there

Lex Fridman (2:04:15.080)

that's keeping track in some kind of way.

Lex Fridman (2:04:17.560)

What advice would you give to young people today

Lex Fridman (2:04:20.440)

in high school and college?

Lex Fridman (2:04:22.240)

How to have a career they can be proud of

Lex Fridman (2:04:25.200)

or maybe how to have a life in general

Lex Fridman (2:04:27.300)

they can be proud of?

Lex Fridman (2:04:28.900)

I would say like your 20s is a good opportunity

Lex Fridman (2:04:32.080)

to set yourself up for the rest of your life, right?

Lex Fridman (2:04:34.880)

So while the 20s are a period where you wanna have fun

Lex Fridman (2:04:38.140)

and you wanna experience youth,

Lex Fridman (2:04:40.440)

it's also a good opportunity to start thinking about

Lex Fridman (2:04:42.400)

what do you want your life to look like

Lex Fridman (2:04:44.840)

in your 30s and your 40s, right?

Lex Fridman (2:04:46.840)

So I feel like it's the best time

Lex Fridman (2:04:48.660)

to really put yourself out there and take risks

Lex Fridman (2:04:51.200)

and try to hit it, you know, whatever,

Lex Fridman (2:04:53.760)

you know, like to work really, really hard

Daniel Negreanu (2:04:55.380)

to set yourself up.

Lex Fridman (2:04:56.400)

Because, and I said this at an event I was speaking at,

Daniel Negreanu (2:04:59.880)

when you're like with poker,

Lex Fridman (2:05:01.040)

when your bankroll is very, very small,

Lex Fridman (2:05:02.480)

it's replenishable, right?

Lex Fridman (2:05:05.120)

You don't need to protect it as much

Lex Fridman (2:05:06.960)

as you do once you've got something, right?

Lex Fridman (2:05:09.360)

Once you have a brand or you have money,

Daniel Negreanu (2:05:11.200)

you have something like that,

Lex Fridman (2:05:12.560)

that's when you wanna start protecting you.

Lex Fridman (2:05:14.040)

But in your 20s is an opportunity

Lex Fridman (2:05:15.580)

to just really sort of get, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (2:05:18.120)

to work really, really hard to set yourself up,

Lex Fridman (2:05:21.260)

you know, for the future.

Daniel Negreanu (2:05:22.100)

I am concerned a little bit,

Lex Fridman (2:05:23.280)

like every time I talk to kids today,

Lex Fridman (2:05:24.600)

I'm like, what do you wanna be?

Lex Fridman (2:05:26.080)

They all wanna be YouTubers or Instagram stars or rappers,

Lex Fridman (2:05:30.160)

right?

Lex Fridman (2:05:31.000)

Like, okay, I was like, that's cool,

Lex Fridman (2:05:32.480)

but like, there's only so many of those,

Lex Fridman (2:05:33.880)

you know, that there can be.

Lex Fridman (2:05:35.360)

So it might be worthwhile having

Lex Fridman (2:05:36.520)

a little bit of a backup plan.

Daniel Negreanu (2:05:38.000)

I think it's easier to be successful on Instagram

Lex Fridman (2:05:40.600)

and social media if you do something else.

Lex Fridman (2:05:43.160)

And I would say this too.

Lex Fridman (2:05:44.680)

One other thing I would say is,

Daniel Negreanu (2:05:46.960)

don't choose a profession or an idea

Lex Fridman (2:05:50.640)

because you think it'll make you rich, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:05:54.000)

Pursue something that you actually love.

Lex Fridman (2:05:56.560)

Because if you love it,

Daniel Negreanu (2:05:57.700)

you're way more likely to become rich.

Lex Fridman (2:05:59.560)

If you don't, you do something that you don't actually enjoy.

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:02.960)

Now you're spending a lot of your life unhappy,

Lex Fridman (2:06:05.440)

doing something you don't want,

Lex Fridman (2:06:06.680)

and if you're not passionate about it,

Lex Fridman (2:06:08.760)

you're probably not,

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:09.600)

the chances of you being successful are much lower.

Lex Fridman (2:06:12.240)

And also becoming rich,

Lex Fridman (2:06:14.000)

and I've talked to a lot of rich people,

Lex Fridman (2:06:15.760)

hang out with a lot of rich people,

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:17.400)

is not going to be as fulfilling as you imagine.

Lex Fridman (2:06:21.440)

If you arrive there by not doing the thing

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:23.600)

that you love doing.

Lex Fridman (2:06:24.720)

That's true.

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:25.560)

Ultimately, the thing that you love doing is like,

Lex Fridman (2:06:28.800)

that's what makes life worth it.

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:30.320)

There's another quote, I can't remember who it was,

Lex Fridman (2:06:32.240)

otherwise I would quote them,

Lex Fridman (2:06:33.080)

but it says something to the effect of like,

Lex Fridman (2:06:37.000)

if we believe in the lie that more is always better,

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:39.640)

then we can never truly arrive.

Lex Fridman (2:06:41.640)

Because wherever we are, more is better, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:44.480)

I've never understood,

Lex Fridman (2:06:45.640)

and I've been around rich people,

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:46.680)

like you said, you know, the bill,

Lex Fridman (2:06:48.320)

I never got, I can't, I don't get it.

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:50.320)

Like, if you have a billion dollars,

Lex Fridman (2:06:51.920)

why do you give a shit about money at all?

Daniel Negreanu (2:06:54.680)

Like, and they're still like, oh, we made this deal,

Lex Fridman (2:06:56.680)

and I'm like, you know, we picked up 300,

Lex Fridman (2:06:58.720)

who cares?

Lex Fridman (2:06:59.560)

Like, your life is set.

Lex Fridman (2:07:00.440)

Like, there is that bell curve, right?

Lex Fridman (2:07:03.040)

Where obviously being in poverty, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:05.200)

there's obviously a high rate of unhappiness,

Lex Fridman (2:07:07.320)

but there's a certain amount of money where you reach,

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:09.600)

you know, where you reach a level of happiness,

Lex Fridman (2:07:10.960)

and then too much, you find the people

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:13.280)

that are searching for money to fulfill these holes,

Lex Fridman (2:07:15.400)

it starts to go back down again.

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:17.480)

Well, the getting more money could become a game,

Lex Fridman (2:07:21.520)

like a sport, that's fun to play,

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:23.520)

as long as you directly or indirectly acknowledge

Lex Fridman (2:07:27.320)

that what you love is the game of it,

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:29.520)

versus the actual attainment of money.

Lex Fridman (2:07:31.000)

And I think that's what it is, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:32.600)

For me, I've never cared about money that much.

Lex Fridman (2:07:34.600)

I just never did, otherwise I would have a lot more of it.

Lex Fridman (2:07:37.280)

But it's always, like, it's always been strange to me

Lex Fridman (2:07:40.040)

how people that have that kind of money,

Lex Fridman (2:07:42.160)

like, are cheap in any way, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:07:45.760)

Like, they wouldn't donate 5,000 to a worthwhile charity,

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:48.880)

because it's like, buddy, this,

Lex Fridman (2:07:50.560)

like, when it changes your life, not,

Daniel Negreanu (2:07:52.720)

I don't even like, like, small things, like taxes.

Lex Fridman (2:07:55.440)

Like, okay, you have $20 billion,

Lex Fridman (2:07:57.400)

and you're worried about paying 33%, 30% to 31.

Lex Fridman (2:08:00.640)

I get it, I get the point of it all,

Lex Fridman (2:08:03.480)

but like, it literally has no effect on your life whatsoever.

Lex Fridman (2:08:06.880)

Your life is unchanged, whether it's 31 or 33.

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:10.200)

Yeah, that's the negative of a lot of money,

Lex Fridman (2:08:12.840)

is if it corrupts the way you see the world,

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:14.800)

you start to be protective and so on.

Lex Fridman (2:08:16.520)

I mean, part of the challenge of when you get a lot of money

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:19.240)

is people start to treat you differently,

Lex Fridman (2:08:21.200)

and so navigating that correctly is very challenging.

Lex Fridman (2:08:24.760)

So don't change, remain the same person you always were,

Lex Fridman (2:08:29.960)

because if you change, you start to,

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:32.000)

I mean, that's why power corrupts,

Lex Fridman (2:08:33.720)

is you get a lot of power, you get a lot of fame,

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:36.000)

you get a lot of money, you start to distrust people,

Lex Fridman (2:08:40.120)

and you start to push away people

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:41.840)

that are actually really close to you with trusting.

Lex Fridman (2:08:43.680)

And you also, I think, you develop some biases

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:45.400)

where you think, like, you're just this,

Lex Fridman (2:08:47.040)

you know, you think, like, it was all you,

Lex Fridman (2:08:49.360)

and you're a genius, and you're so great,

Lex Fridman (2:08:51.000)

and all these other people who don't have,

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:52.440)

it's just because they don't have what you have,

Lex Fridman (2:08:54.040)

and then you start to view that group of people,

Daniel Negreanu (2:08:57.080)

whether they're impoverished or whatever is less than,

Lex Fridman (2:09:00.280)

and that you're some great guru

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:01.640)

where you could have just got lucky and bought Bitcoins

Lex Fridman (2:09:04.080)

that you could have done anything,

Lex Fridman (2:09:05.520)

and then you became super wealthy,

Lex Fridman (2:09:07.520)

and then you have this Dunning Kruger effect,

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:10.160)

where you think you know everything about everything.

Lex Fridman (2:09:11.800)

And a lot of poker people have that,

Lex Fridman (2:09:13.000)

and listen, I'm probably guilty in some ways too,

Lex Fridman (2:09:16.080)

thinking because you can figure out poker

Lex Fridman (2:09:17.640)

and be great at that, that you could figure out anything.

Lex Fridman (2:09:20.200)

So it's true, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:21.440)

I mean, we sort of, we genuinely feel like

Lex Fridman (2:09:24.160)

people that reach the highest levels of poker

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:25.640)

feel like they are intelligent.

Lex Fridman (2:09:27.200)

So they will look at problem solving

Lex Fridman (2:09:28.440)

and think that they have answers.

Lex Fridman (2:09:30.120)

Well, you have to remind yourself that you're not.

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:32.840)

It's best to see the world as you did just get lucky,

Lex Fridman (2:09:35.480)

or at least from my perspective,

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:37.080)

that you're not better than anybody.

Lex Fridman (2:09:38.400)

I don't think there's anything wrong with, like,

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:39.640)

acknowledging that you worked hard to get where you were.

Lex Fridman (2:09:42.000)

Like, there isn't, but at the same time, like,

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:44.320)

it's not available to everybody in the same way.

Lex Fridman (2:09:46.160)

You know, right time, right place.

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:47.440)

Like, for me, my poker career

Lex Fridman (2:09:48.600)

could have gone very differently, you know?

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:50.520)

If things didn't work out, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:09:52.320)

if I had some bad luck in the wrong times,

Lex Fridman (2:09:54.400)

like, who knows where I'd be?

Lex Fridman (2:09:56.080)

So you said your brain crawl is pretty small in your 20s.

Daniel Negreanu (2:09:59.840)

I'm sure you've been around a lot of people

Lex Fridman (2:10:01.840)

you care a lot about who've lost everything in poker.

Lex Fridman (2:10:04.720)

What's that like?

Lex Fridman (2:10:05.960)

What's those low points of losing everything?

Daniel Negreanu (2:10:09.280)

I think because I've been there,

Lex Fridman (2:10:12.040)

I have more empathy than I probably should for those people.

Daniel Negreanu (2:10:15.600)

I really feel for them.

Lex Fridman (2:10:16.480)

Cause I remember being in Vegas and being totally broke

Lex Fridman (2:10:18.960)

and like a guy loaning me $400

Lex Fridman (2:10:21.720)

and me like turning that 400 into 20,000, 400 bucks.

Lex Fridman (2:10:24.840)

And it was like eternally grateful to that.

Lex Fridman (2:10:27.360)

So when I have friends who go through that,

Daniel Negreanu (2:10:29.520)

like I always try to consult them,

Lex Fridman (2:10:31.000)

obviously what they really need is money for the most part.

Lex Fridman (2:10:34.680)

But I remember saying no to one friend

Lex Fridman (2:10:36.440)

because he didn't have a plan.

Lex Fridman (2:10:37.720)

So I like to try to help them in that regard.

Lex Fridman (2:10:39.800)

Like my buddy's like, can you stake me in this game?

Lex Fridman (2:10:42.240)

And I was like, all right, well, how much do you,

Lex Fridman (2:10:43.880)

then I was like, let's break down the math, bro.

Lex Fridman (2:10:45.720)

You want me to stake you?

Lex Fridman (2:10:46.560)

So you get 50% of the profit, right?

Lex Fridman (2:10:48.720)

So I said, how much do you think you can make in this game?

Lex Fridman (2:10:50.440)

How much does the biggest winners make?

Daniel Negreanu (2:10:52.200)

It's like, well, I can probably, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:10:53.640)

I probably do like 20,000 a month in this game.

Daniel Negreanu (2:10:56.280)

So, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:10:57.120)

So you get half of that cause I get 10, right?

Lex Fridman (2:10:58.960)

What is your monthly nut?

Lex Fridman (2:10:59.900)

How much are you spending?

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:00.740)

It's like, well, I'm renting this thing for 8,000.

Lex Fridman (2:11:03.400)

You're spending 17,000 a month.

Lex Fridman (2:11:05.920)

So like, no matter what you're set up to fail.

Lex Fridman (2:11:09.480)

Like this isn't going to work.

Lex Fridman (2:11:10.900)

So I actually didn't give him the money.

Lex Fridman (2:11:12.160)

And I was like, what you need to do to earn more money

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:13.940)

is lower your monthly nut because it's too high.

Lex Fridman (2:11:16.120)

It just, you know, it just doesn't mathematically add up.

Lex Fridman (2:11:19.160)

So trying to set them right in that regard

Lex Fridman (2:11:21.500)

is something that like I feel obliged to do,

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:24.680)

especially if they're friends.

Lex Fridman (2:11:25.520)

But what about the mental aspect of the struggle

Lex Fridman (2:11:27.600)

they're going through, the struggle you were going through?

Lex Fridman (2:11:30.040)

Just, I mean, it's really rough to have no money.

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:34.400)

It's not for everybody.

Lex Fridman (2:11:35.520)

This really isn't.

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:36.360)

Like a lot of people might, you know, listen to this

Lex Fridman (2:11:37.720)

and think like, oh, I want to play poker.

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:38.800)

It's like, most people fail.

Lex Fridman (2:11:41.520)

Most people who want to play in the NFL,

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:43.920)

they spend their college years,

Lex Fridman (2:11:46.320)

like most of them are not going to make it.

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:48.520)

Most of you who try to play poker professionally

Lex Fridman (2:11:50.440)

are going to fail and you're going to experience despair.

Lex Fridman (2:11:52.900)

Okay?

Lex Fridman (2:11:53.800)

There are those like in anything that have the passion,

Daniel Negreanu (2:11:56.160)

have the knowhow, have the luck and all that sort of stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:11:58.280)

And it all pans out, but you know, they're the minority.

Lex Fridman (2:12:03.200)

And so for the low points, if you remember,

Lex Fridman (2:12:06.440)

what does it take to sort of overcome that,

Lex Fridman (2:12:08.720)

overcome the mental struggle?

Lex Fridman (2:12:12.300)

I mean, you're making it sound like certain people

Daniel Negreanu (2:12:13.800)

are just genetically able to in certain.

Lex Fridman (2:12:15.520)

I do think some people are more apt to being able to deal

Daniel Negreanu (2:12:18.240)

with like adversity and having resilience

Lex Fridman (2:12:20.040)

and some people just can't hack it.

Lex Fridman (2:12:21.600)

But like I generally, what I would advise,

Lex Fridman (2:12:23.360)

you know, people that are, let's say a guy's playing,

Daniel Negreanu (2:12:24.760)

you know, really high stakes or whatever,

Lex Fridman (2:12:26.480)

doing badly is step number one is take,

Daniel Negreanu (2:12:29.140)

take a little bit of a break here.

Lex Fridman (2:12:30.520)

Let's recalibrate and let's start small again.

Daniel Negreanu (2:12:33.760)

Let's, you know, let's restart

Lex Fridman (2:12:35.040)

and let's play smaller stakes

Lex Fridman (2:12:36.140)

and let's get our confidence back because in poker,

Lex Fridman (2:12:39.120)

without confidence, you cannot be successful.

Daniel Negreanu (2:12:41.660)

It is incredibly important to have almost an inflated level

Lex Fridman (2:12:45.120)

of confidence in yourself

Lex Fridman (2:12:46.880)

because you're up against it, right?

Lex Fridman (2:12:48.800)

As I said, the majority of people fail.

Lex Fridman (2:12:50.460)

So why are you special?

Lex Fridman (2:12:51.520)

Why are you different?

Daniel Negreanu (2:12:52.560)

You have to be pretty confident about your, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:12:54.240)

yourself to think that you are one of the chosen ones.

Lex Fridman (2:12:57.560)

And then don't resist the despair and take a nap.

Lex Fridman (2:13:01.680)

Definitely take a nap.

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:03.800)

Listen, it's okay to experience it.

Lex Fridman (2:13:05.080)

Like I said, yeah, you're going to experience despair.

Lex Fridman (2:13:06.800)

What else would you, what should you be feeling?

Lex Fridman (2:13:09.280)

You know, if things are going poorly

Lex Fridman (2:13:10.440)

and you've just lost all your money, excited?

Lex Fridman (2:13:12.840)

Maybe like, okay, have your moment of grief,

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:15.880)

allow yourself to experience it so that you can,

Lex Fridman (2:13:18.360)

you know, reassemble.

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:20.560)

There's a fundamental way

Lex Fridman (2:13:21.800)

in which you haven't really lived life

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:23.720)

if you haven't experienced periods of despair.

Lex Fridman (2:13:27.200)

You have a jaded view of the world, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:30.080)

Weird thing about the human condition

Lex Fridman (2:13:31.880)

that both the highs and the lows are important.

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:35.280)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:13:36.120)

What role does love play in the human condition,

Lex Fridman (2:13:40.740)

Daniel Negrano?

Lex Fridman (2:13:42.220)

That's a good one.

Lex Fridman (2:13:43.660)

What role has love played in your life?

Lex Fridman (2:13:47.020)

It's, yeah, that's, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:48.700)

you sort of talked about the ups and downs

Lex Fridman (2:13:50.980)

of the human condition and love has been that for me, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:13:58.500)

Like I'm in a good place now,

Lex Fridman (2:14:00.520)

but you know, even with my now wife years ago,

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:04.580)

you know, she was young, she was, you know, new to poker

Lex Fridman (2:14:07.900)

and she wasn't ready to settle down.

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:09.240)

I was like, when I met her, I think I was 31, she was 21.

Lex Fridman (2:14:12.460)

And I was ready to like lock her up, if you will, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:15.620)

let's do this.

Lex Fridman (2:14:16.460)

And I bought a ring way back when she was like,

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:18.420)

not about that.

Lex Fridman (2:14:19.260)

She was living the Hollywood life.

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:20.940)

She was living, you know, partying in LA,

Lex Fridman (2:14:22.300)

doing that kind of stuff and wasn't ready.

Lex Fridman (2:14:23.900)

And we split and that one hit me hard.

Lex Fridman (2:14:27.220)

So I didn't realize how much of a hit

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:31.120)

that had on my confidence in my, in everything really,

Lex Fridman (2:14:35.220)

in poker, with other women.

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:36.600)

It had me a little jaded about women too, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:14:39.660)

resentful, you know, and it took a lot of like self,

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:43.300)

I did like a lot of personal growth work

Lex Fridman (2:14:45.780)

and workshops and things like that.

Lex Fridman (2:14:47.700)

And then didn't see her for years.

Lex Fridman (2:14:49.860)

And she came back to town, I was a much different person.

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:51.780)

It was just, you know, four years ago or something like that.

Lex Fridman (2:14:54.140)

And she was too, went to dinner.

Daniel Negreanu (2:14:56.740)

A few months later, we were married.

Lex Fridman (2:14:58.740)

It worked out so different because we both had to grow,

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:01.460)

you know, and become different people.

Lex Fridman (2:15:03.700)

And that love was still there somehow.

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:05.500)

Yeah, like she went through her relationships.

Lex Fridman (2:15:07.540)

I went through mine, you know, we experienced life

Lex Fridman (2:15:09.940)

and I was married once before too, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:15:12.900)

called my starter marriage, if you will,

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:16.020)

which yeah, you know, we just, you don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:15:19.020)

I think like until you do it, until you get married

Lex Fridman (2:15:21.180)

and you know, experience like the sacrifice,

Lex Fridman (2:15:23.580)

not necessarily the sacrifices, but your value systems,

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:25.760)

if they don't align identically,

Lex Fridman (2:15:27.060)

which they're not going to, someone like me,

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:30.220)

probably one of my strengths in poker,

Lex Fridman (2:15:32.860)

but my weaknesses in relationship is judgment, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:36.120)

When I play poker, I need to judge you.

Lex Fridman (2:15:37.940)

That's essentially what I'm doing.

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:39.340)

I'm gauging who you are and what you're good at

Lex Fridman (2:15:42.020)

and what you're bad at.

Lex Fridman (2:15:43.180)

And that can have repercussions because it leads,

Lex Fridman (2:15:45.180)

that's how I view, that's the lens I look at everyone with

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:48.620)

based on how you live your life.

Lex Fridman (2:15:49.680)

I'm judging you, this guy's this, this guy's that,

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:51.360)

this guy's that, and that's not healthy.

Lex Fridman (2:15:53.300)

So you have to shut that off.

Daniel Negreanu (2:15:54.780)

You have to learn to like, and the thing,

Lex Fridman (2:15:56.740)

I finally realized what love is, frankly for me,

Lex Fridman (2:15:59.500)

with her is no judgment, right?

Lex Fridman (2:16:02.260)

She's so like, yeah, so I have my way of being, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:04.900)

If she wants to have cereal for dinner,

Lex Fridman (2:16:06.980)

babe, that's the best decision for her.

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:08.580)

I was living in a framework of better and worse.

Lex Fridman (2:16:11.260)

The way that I do things is better and yours is worse,

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:13.940)

do things more like I do.

Lex Fridman (2:16:15.580)

That's a recipe for disaster.

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:17.420)

True acceptance and true love is accepting someone

Lex Fridman (2:16:19.860)

like exactly as they are.

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:21.460)

You know, if she wants to do something different,

Lex Fridman (2:16:23.180)

I'm going to support her, whatever it is.

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:25.060)

Even if I disagree with it personally,

Lex Fridman (2:16:26.700)

and like the way that I would do things,

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:28.600)

learning to just realize that she's had a different journey

Lex Fridman (2:16:31.460)

and a different walk towards where she's at than I have.

Lex Fridman (2:16:34.340)

So I can't pass my judgments on other people like that.

Lex Fridman (2:16:37.540)

I believe it is ethically wrong

Lex Fridman (2:16:39.380)

and probably illegal to eat cereal for dinner.

Lex Fridman (2:16:43.540)

Listen, if she wants it, she wants it.

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:45.700)

Acceptance.

Lex Fridman (2:16:46.860)

Like when she goes to bed, like all these little things,

Lex Fridman (2:16:49.100)

but my regimented life, she's not.

Lex Fridman (2:16:50.860)

Like our motto at our wedding was like,

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:53.780)

you keep me wild, I'll keep you safe, you keep me wild.

Lex Fridman (2:16:56.700)

I keep her safe, she keeps me wild.

Daniel Negreanu (2:16:59.020)

She's like not organized and anal and all those kind

Lex Fridman (2:17:01.620)

of things, I am.

Daniel Negreanu (2:17:02.940)

She helps me like let loose.

Lex Fridman (2:17:06.160)

You know, oh no, I'm eating this, this.

Daniel Negreanu (2:17:07.580)

She's like, have some popcorn.

Lex Fridman (2:17:09.020)

Like, all right, let's do it, you know?

Daniel Negreanu (2:17:10.700)

She keeps me freed.

Lex Fridman (2:17:12.540)

And accepting that, embracing that,

Daniel Negreanu (2:17:14.780)

the difference is the chaos of it.

Lex Fridman (2:17:17.720)

Yeah.

Daniel Negreanu (2:17:18.560)

That's what makes it.

Lex Fridman (2:17:19.380)

Like I literally do think about with her,

Lex Fridman (2:17:21.100)

how important it is and how much I try to like just come

Lex Fridman (2:17:25.360)

from neutral and like compassion and never judge.

Lex Fridman (2:17:28.260)

Cause she's got other things that she deals with, right?

Lex Fridman (2:17:30.380)

That I don't, she's bipolar, right?

Lex Fridman (2:17:32.940)

So with that, I've studied and I've learned a lot about,

Lex Fridman (2:17:35.860)

you know, sort of mental health and what that means

Lex Fridman (2:17:37.860)

and ways in which a lot of characteristics

Lex Fridman (2:17:43.340)

about somebody is completely out of their control

Lex Fridman (2:17:45.740)

when they're bipolar, right?

Lex Fridman (2:17:47.380)

And there's swings, like there's no cocktail

Lex Fridman (2:17:51.260)

for bipolar that solves the issue, right?

Lex Fridman (2:17:53.820)

So there's medications that work to, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (2:17:55.740)

level you out for periods of time,

Lex Fridman (2:17:57.660)

but then they start to fade and they don't work as well.

Lex Fridman (2:17:59.540)

So they constantly need readjustment.

Lex Fridman (2:18:01.540)

It's an unsolved mystery to a certain degree.

Lex Fridman (2:18:04.020)

So in some sense, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:18:07.220)

her diagnosis made our relationship easier

Lex Fridman (2:18:11.180)

because I don't take anything personal, right?

Lex Fridman (2:18:13.540)

I realized that sometimes she's gonna be in a mood.

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:16.140)

I mean, she's so good about communicating it though.

Lex Fridman (2:18:19.740)

She tells me some morning she'll be like bad mood

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:22.020)

trying to get out of it, babe.

Lex Fridman (2:18:22.860)

I'm like, okay, I leave her alone.

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:24.780)

Well, that's great.

Lex Fridman (2:18:25.620)

That means she's grown to be able to communicate,

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:27.620)

to understand, to self reflect, to understand where she is.

Lex Fridman (2:18:29.940)

I have people in my life who I love who are bipolar.

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:32.900)

It's a beautiful ride.

Lex Fridman (2:18:34.060)

It is, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:35.100)

Yeah, it's, yeah, the highs and the lows are there.

Lex Fridman (2:18:38.780)

So, but yeah, like, because I feel like a protector.

Lex Fridman (2:18:41.540)

For me, I just want to be a rock, right?

Lex Fridman (2:18:44.380)

And that's part of the whole serial thing.

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:45.900)

If she wants to eat cereal,

Lex Fridman (2:18:47.780)

don't make a wrong for anything she wants to do.

Lex Fridman (2:18:50.540)

What have you learned from life

Lex Fridman (2:18:52.100)

from the song, The Gambler by Kenny Rogers?

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:55.660)

You got to know when to hold them,

Lex Fridman (2:18:57.140)

know when to fold them,

Daniel Negreanu (2:18:58.700)

know when to walk away, know when to run.

Lex Fridman (2:19:01.540)

You never count your money when you're sitting at the table.

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:04.100)

There'll be plenty of time for counting

Lex Fridman (2:19:05.580)

when the dealing's done.

Lex Fridman (2:19:06.820)

Is that, do you live by those words or?

Lex Fridman (2:19:08.900)

The first part of it for sure.

Lex Fridman (2:19:10.820)

What do they even mean?

Lex Fridman (2:19:11.980)

Cause.

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:12.820)

You got to know when to hold, know when.

Lex Fridman (2:19:15.340)

So basically it's like, all right, you know, in life,

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:17.540)

like, you know, let's say, let's use a, whatever,

Lex Fridman (2:19:20.220)

the market, for example, you bought a stock, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:23.100)

Or you bought Bitcoin and you're like,

Lex Fridman (2:19:24.260)

it's going to go to the moon, right?

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:26.340)

It's like, okay, well, maybe things have changed.

Lex Fridman (2:19:29.540)

New scenario, new circumstances, new situation.

Lex Fridman (2:19:32.460)

Are you going down with the ship, right?

Lex Fridman (2:19:34.780)

Or are you going to lay the hand down?

Lex Fridman (2:19:36.060)

Are you going to fold it?

Lex Fridman (2:19:37.060)

Whether it's a relationship, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:38.700)

you're with this woman, you're like, all right,

Lex Fridman (2:19:41.100)

I think it's time to fold this one.

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:43.020)

I think, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:19:44.060)

I don't think that we're going to be able to make this,

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:46.260)

this hand work right now.

Lex Fridman (2:19:47.700)

When to fold them and when to run.

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:49.700)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:19:50.540)

So maybe every gambler knows that the secret to surviving

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:54.100)

is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep

Lex Fridman (2:19:56.780)

because every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser.

Daniel Negreanu (2:19:59.660)

That's like a stoic philosophy.

Lex Fridman (2:20:01.100)

And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:06.060)

Every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser.

Lex Fridman (2:20:09.220)

What does that mean?

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:10.340)

I like that one.

Lex Fridman (2:20:11.180)

I like, for me, that's like the difference between victim

Lex Fridman (2:20:13.500)

and responsible, like the way that I think about it, right?

Lex Fridman (2:20:16.100)

You can be a victim to circumstance

Lex Fridman (2:20:18.100)

or you can be responsible for everything in your life, right?

Lex Fridman (2:20:20.380)

So when an event happens,

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:22.020)

the event itself is neither good or bad

Lex Fridman (2:20:24.820)

until you assign it value, right?

Lex Fridman (2:20:27.380)

So like an event happens and it can be traumatic,

Lex Fridman (2:20:30.740)

it can be, you know, painful,

Lex Fridman (2:20:31.980)

but you know, how you respond to it

Lex Fridman (2:20:33.820)

is ultimately going to be up to you.

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:35.500)

Like you actually do have a choice.

Lex Fridman (2:20:36.740)

And that's the thing you can control.

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:38.940)

The fact that you, Daniel Negrano took my commentary

Lex Fridman (2:20:42.500)

about The Gambler seriously shows once more

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:44.860)

that you're a beautiful human being.

Lex Fridman (2:20:47.060)

Thank you so much for being who you are,

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:49.300)

for inspiring millions of people about poker,

Lex Fridman (2:20:51.740)

about how to live life.

Lex Fridman (2:20:53.020)

And thank you for giving me your valuable time today.

Lex Fridman (2:20:55.340)

This is amazing.

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:56.180)

Thanks for talking.

Lex Fridman (2:20:57.020)

It was fun, man.

Daniel Negreanu (2:20:57.860)

It was great to have the conversation.

Lex Fridman (2:20:59.740)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Daniel Negreanu (2:21:01.220)

with Daniel Negrano.

Lex Fridman (2:21:02.420)

To support this podcast,

Daniel Negreanu (2:21:03.540)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (2:21:06.140)

And now let me leave you with some words

Daniel Negreanu (2:21:09.100)

from Doyle Brunson.

Lex Fridman (2:21:11.380)

Poker is war.

Daniel Negreanu (2:21:13.580)

People pretend it is a game.

Lex Fridman (2:21:15.540)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Daniel Negreanu (30:01.900)

I'm more likely to catch something,

Lex Fridman (30:03.260)

which may actually make me more apt to be aggressive

Lex Fridman (30:06.020)

and confident in the hand.

Lex Fridman (30:07.340)

But you really shouldn't let yourself do that.

Daniel Negreanu (30:10.060)

Like you're not supposed to fall in love

Lex Fridman (30:11.180)

with any specific hands.

Daniel Negreanu (30:12.780)

Yeah, but you know, uncertainty is ruthless.

Lex Fridman (30:18.220)

It's, you know, the fact that it's a game of statistics,

Daniel Negreanu (30:23.380)

it can be too painful for the human psychology.

Lex Fridman (30:26.900)

So maybe you have to hold on to certain superstitions.

Daniel Negreanu (30:30.820)

Because, you know, I mean, there's a cold absurdity

Lex Fridman (30:34.420)

to the fact that you can play extremely well and still lose.

Daniel Negreanu (30:38.740)

I mean, actually this year you've played the,

Lex Fridman (30:43.980)

what is it, 50 days of World Series of Poker.

Lex Fridman (30:47.700)

And it seems like, at least from the perspective

Lex Fridman (30:50.980)

of me looking at it through the internet,

Daniel Negreanu (30:53.020)

it seems like there's a lot of hands

Lex Fridman (30:54.620)

that you were like 70, 30, 80, 20, all in hands

Daniel Negreanu (30:59.140)

that you just did not, were not going your way.

Lex Fridman (31:02.420)

That can sort of break you mentally.

Daniel Negreanu (31:04.220)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (31:05.460)

Yeah, one of the hardest things, especially about playing,

Daniel Negreanu (31:07.460)

because cash games and tournaments are different.

Lex Fridman (31:09.620)

One of the most difficult things about, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (31:11.140)

being a tournament player is resilience.

Lex Fridman (31:13.380)

Because more often than not, like,

Lex Fridman (31:14.820)

so if there's a tournament with a thousand people,

Lex Fridman (31:17.420)

to win the tournament, you have to get all of the chips.

Daniel Negreanu (31:19.460)

That means there's one winner and 999 losers.

Lex Fridman (31:22.220)

So it's very rare that you actually like win all the chips.

Lex Fridman (31:25.500)

So you're essentially at some point

Lex Fridman (31:27.220)

in every tournament you play,

Daniel Negreanu (31:28.180)

gonna deal with like really bad luck and disappointment.

Lex Fridman (31:31.320)

And sometimes those streaks can have you question yourself

Lex Fridman (31:34.540)

and be introspective about, okay,

Lex Fridman (31:35.980)

so I think I'm 47 now.

Daniel Negreanu (31:38.020)

I think I've gotten better as time went on

Lex Fridman (31:40.220)

between distinguishing, okay,

Lex Fridman (31:42.140)

am I losing right now because of bad luck?

Lex Fridman (31:44.720)

Or is it fundamentally decisions I'm making

Lex Fridman (31:47.020)

are not very good, right?

Lex Fridman (31:48.820)

And that's one of the hardest things

Lex Fridman (31:50.220)

for anyone who plays poker to get to, right?

Lex Fridman (31:53.300)

Why am I losing?

Lex Fridman (31:54.340)

Am I losing because of my opponents being better?

Lex Fridman (31:57.300)

I'm not playing well, or am I losing just because of luck?

Lex Fridman (31:59.460)

And because there's so much variance in poker,

Lex Fridman (32:02.580)

a lot of players can be confused

Daniel Negreanu (32:04.780)

on both sides of the coin.

Lex Fridman (32:06.020)

One guy's winning and he thinks he's great.

Daniel Negreanu (32:07.700)

He's really not, wait till the cards break even as we say.

Lex Fridman (32:11.020)

I think there's a lot of parallels to life as well.

Daniel Negreanu (32:13.500)

If you get screwed over, over and over,

Lex Fridman (32:15.620)

it's hard to know if you're doing something wrong

Daniel Negreanu (32:17.980)

or if it's just bad luck.

Lex Fridman (32:19.940)

I think they did a study.

Daniel Negreanu (32:20.980)

I remember there was like a study

Lex Fridman (32:22.060)

that was mostly related to gambling,

Lex Fridman (32:23.900)

but it was mice and they put them in a little maze

Lex Fridman (32:25.980)

and they go down these three tubes

Lex Fridman (32:27.940)

and they go down this one tube and there'd be cheese, right?

Lex Fridman (32:30.900)

And then they go down again, cheese.

Lex Fridman (32:32.780)

Three times in a row there was cheese there, right?

Lex Fridman (32:34.980)

The next time there was an electric shock there, not cheese.

Daniel Negreanu (32:39.500)

The rat went, you know, the mouse went to get zapped.

Lex Fridman (32:42.980)

He got zapped, okay, came back.

Daniel Negreanu (32:44.660)

He kept going back to get zapped until he died.

Lex Fridman (32:47.420)

Like he kept going because he found cheese there.

Daniel Negreanu (32:50.500)

He has one there.

Lex Fridman (32:52.100)

So he continued to go chase that win

Daniel Negreanu (32:54.740)

despite it being, you know, now all of a sudden

Lex Fridman (32:57.140)

not worthwhile till he died.

Lex Fridman (32:59.340)

And essentially what they said was

Lex Fridman (33:01.260)

that is essentially how they compared it

Daniel Negreanu (33:03.340)

to like, you know, the gambling brain

Lex Fridman (33:04.980)

and how people think about gambling.

Daniel Negreanu (33:06.780)

You're chasing the wins.

Lex Fridman (33:08.180)

You learn too much.

Daniel Negreanu (33:09.860)

You sort of overgeneralize the lessons learned

Lex Fridman (33:12.420)

from the times you've won.

Lex Fridman (33:13.460)

So yeah, like beginner's luck can be detrimental.

Lex Fridman (33:15.620)

If you have some early luck and you believe

Daniel Negreanu (33:17.980)

that this is just the way it's supposed to be forever,

Lex Fridman (33:20.780)

you know, it can put you in a delusional state

Daniel Negreanu (33:23.500)

where, you know, you feel like I'm just great,

Lex Fridman (33:26.500)

but no, you're not.

Daniel Negreanu (33:27.420)

You were just lucky in the beginning.

Lex Fridman (33:28.740)

I actually played poker once in Vegas.

Daniel Negreanu (33:31.460)

It was a, it wasn't a tournament,

Lex Fridman (33:34.060)

but it was a kind of tournament like style.

Daniel Negreanu (33:37.900)

I already forgot what it was.

Lex Fridman (33:39.060)

But what I do remember is that I had four of a kind.

Lex Fridman (33:42.980)

So the last hand I've ever played in poker was,

Lex Fridman (33:46.500)

I got a four of a kind and there was a couple of others

Daniel Negreanu (33:50.580)

with really strong hands.

Lex Fridman (33:51.460)

So everybody went all in.

Lex Fridman (33:53.100)

And I think you get some kind of bonus

Lex Fridman (33:54.580)

for getting four of a kind.

Daniel Negreanu (33:55.500)

Bad beat jackpot you were playing in.

Lex Fridman (33:56.860)

Yeah, so something like this.

Daniel Negreanu (33:58.460)

I apologize if I don't know the details,

Lex Fridman (34:00.380)

but I just remember winning a lot of money

Lex Fridman (34:02.300)

and I walked away from the table.

Lex Fridman (34:04.060)

I said, I'm not playing poker again.

Daniel Negreanu (34:05.260)

This is great.

Lex Fridman (34:06.100)

I'm gonna hit it up top.

Daniel Negreanu (34:07.060)

Cause I started to feel like this is your,

Lex Fridman (34:09.340)

I started to think,

Daniel Negreanu (34:10.180)

even though I haven't really played poker at all,

Lex Fridman (34:12.180)

that I'm good.

Lex Fridman (34:13.300)

And that was a really dangerous feeling.

Lex Fridman (34:15.420)

And everybody was really mad for walking away

Daniel Negreanu (34:17.180)

from the table.

Lex Fridman (34:18.140)

One of the other things that I think is interesting

Lex Fridman (34:19.460)

about poker too is good is relative, right?

Lex Fridman (34:21.980)

So you could be the seventh best player in the whole world,

Daniel Negreanu (34:25.180)

like literally seventh best player.

Lex Fridman (34:26.900)

But if you're playing with the other six,

Daniel Negreanu (34:29.460)

you're the sucker.

Lex Fridman (34:30.940)

You are like the worst player in the game, right?

Lex Fridman (34:33.820)

So like there's a lot of players, for example,

Lex Fridman (34:36.580)

like the Dan Blazarians of the world, right?

Daniel Negreanu (34:38.420)

He's not a top level player,

Lex Fridman (34:40.580)

like these guys you see on TV,

Lex Fridman (34:42.500)

but he probably makes more money than they do

Lex Fridman (34:44.620)

because he plays with people

Daniel Negreanu (34:46.020)

that are far below his skill level.

Lex Fridman (34:47.660)

So part of the skill of being a poker player

Daniel Negreanu (34:50.220)

is finding situations where you're profitable,

Lex Fridman (34:53.580)

regardless of your skill level.

Daniel Negreanu (34:55.620)

Another connection to life.

Lex Fridman (34:57.900)

Do you think Dan Blazarian is telling the truth

Lex Fridman (35:01.140)

about having made, what is it, $50, $100 million?

Lex Fridman (35:04.740)

Just a huge amount of money playing poker.

Daniel Negreanu (35:06.860)

Considering what I know about the private games

Lex Fridman (35:09.380)

and the types of players who play in these private games

Lex Fridman (35:11.420)

and the stakes that they play,

Lex Fridman (35:12.780)

I absolutely believe Dan has made,

Daniel Negreanu (35:14.900)

I don't know how many millions,

Lex Fridman (35:16.180)

but whether it's 50 or whatever,

Lex Fridman (35:17.780)

but it wouldn't surprise me

Lex Fridman (35:19.500)

that if you play in these games within a year

Daniel Negreanu (35:21.660)

or you find the right businessman

Lex Fridman (35:23.900)

who has way too much Bitcoin money,

Lex Fridman (35:26.140)

and in one night you take him for 20 million,

Lex Fridman (35:28.300)

I absolutely could see it.

Daniel Negreanu (35:29.660)

I don't see any reason why.

Lex Fridman (35:30.980)

Listen, where he got his money initially,

Daniel Negreanu (35:33.020)

that's up to interpretation from his father or whatever,

Lex Fridman (35:36.540)

but has he made a bunch of money playing poker?

Daniel Negreanu (35:38.940)

Absolutely, no question.

Lex Fridman (35:40.620)

Do you feel, as somebody who loves the game,

Lex Fridman (35:43.180)

do you think there's something almost ethically wrong

Lex Fridman (35:46.300)

in playing people much worse than you?

Lex Fridman (35:48.780)

So yeah, that's a good question

Lex Fridman (35:50.180)

because part of the reason I played poker

Lex Fridman (35:53.500)

and wanted to become professional

Lex Fridman (35:54.580)

was I wanted to make my mother proud, right?

Lex Fridman (35:57.180)

And I don't think she would be proud of me

Lex Fridman (35:58.540)

taking Grandma Betty's last $5 and down the street,

Daniel Negreanu (36:03.020)

sending her broke and taking her pension check.

Lex Fridman (36:05.260)

So I play at the high stakes

Daniel Negreanu (36:06.500)

against people who can afford it.

Lex Fridman (36:07.780)

They know who I am.

Daniel Negreanu (36:08.660)

I'm not a hustler.

Lex Fridman (36:09.500)

I'm not pretending I'm bad at poker to squeeze in.

Daniel Negreanu (36:12.540)

I was thinking about this just yesterday

Lex Fridman (36:13.940)

because I played in a game

Daniel Negreanu (36:15.060)

that if I played that sort of role

Lex Fridman (36:17.900)

where a lot of guys do pros

Daniel Negreanu (36:19.260)

that sort of play down their skill level,

Lex Fridman (36:21.620)

pretend they're just one of the guys,

Daniel Negreanu (36:23.420)

these guys can make $20, $30 million in a year, legitimately.

Lex Fridman (36:27.540)

Like I believe that like, if I did that,

Daniel Negreanu (36:29.500)

if I just said, you know what, I'm gonna go down that path,

Lex Fridman (36:31.580)

get into these games in LA, you know,

Lex Fridman (36:33.100)

and travel and do all this kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (36:34.500)

I can make 20 million a year.

Lex Fridman (36:35.660)

But it feels a little greasy, right?

Lex Fridman (36:38.100)

I don't like to kiss anyone's ass.

Daniel Negreanu (36:39.620)

I don't like to ask anyone for a favor or things like that.

Lex Fridman (36:43.300)

So, but yeah, like I feel, listen,

Daniel Negreanu (36:48.700)

a rich guy who wants to sit down with a million bucks

Lex Fridman (36:51.180)

and get drunk and lose it, I have no empathy for that.

Daniel Negreanu (36:53.180)

I'm like, I don't have any moral qualms with that.

Lex Fridman (36:55.620)

So if a grandma Betty is a billionaire.

Lex Fridman (36:59.260)

Send it, send it, right?

Lex Fridman (37:01.180)

You know, absolutely, why not?

Daniel Negreanu (37:04.940)

Well, let me ask you about a tough period

Lex Fridman (37:06.900)

of your recent life.

Daniel Negreanu (37:08.020)

You had a rough, like we mentioned,

Lex Fridman (37:10.060)

the World Series of Poker losing $1.1 million over 48 days.

Lex Fridman (37:15.380)

What were you going through mentally during that?

Lex Fridman (37:18.440)

So here's the thing, you know, I do, like you said,

Daniel Negreanu (37:20.280)

I do a YouTube vlog every day.

Lex Fridman (37:21.520)

So I kind of share my thoughts and listen,

Daniel Negreanu (37:23.820)

I can edit that thing and keep out the bad stuff,

Lex Fridman (37:26.740)

but I think it's more authentic and genuine to show people

Daniel Negreanu (37:29.820)

the actual struggles and the pain that I go through,

Lex Fridman (37:32.060)

you know, without it.

Lex Fridman (37:32.900)

And I'd say the one thing I'm most proud of

Lex Fridman (37:35.020)

throughout the entire thing is the resilience

Daniel Negreanu (37:36.620)

because there are moments you see me where I'm broken.

Lex Fridman (37:39.020)

I'm just like, I can't take it.

Daniel Negreanu (37:39.980)

I broke a selfie stick this year.

Lex Fridman (37:41.720)

Like I was filming it.

Daniel Negreanu (37:42.940)

Cause you know, I do for my vlog,

Lex Fridman (37:43.940)

I smashed the stick through it in the corner, right?

Daniel Negreanu (37:46.220)

It's just, that was my like hit rock bottom moment.

Lex Fridman (37:49.220)

And then I put the camera on me and I was like, all right,

Daniel Negreanu (37:51.220)

I'll let people see it.

Lex Fridman (37:52.340)

But mentally it was very difficult

Daniel Negreanu (37:53.860)

because there was a feeling of hopelessness

Lex Fridman (37:56.860)

where I was making good decisions.

Daniel Negreanu (38:00.020)

Like I genuinely felt like I'm playing really, really well.

Lex Fridman (38:02.680)

But every time my money went in and my opponent's money

Daniel Negreanu (38:04.940)

went in and say, I was 60%, 70%, 80%

Lex Fridman (38:08.140)

for about a two week stretch, I lost every one of those.

Lex Fridman (38:11.460)

And you start to wonder, you're like,

Lex Fridman (38:13.500)

I can't win if I never win, you know, in these spots.

Lex Fridman (38:16.900)

So it was difficult.

Lex Fridman (38:18.300)

Luckily I have, you know, 20 odd years of experience

Daniel Negreanu (38:20.980)

on how to deal with it.

Lex Fridman (38:21.980)

And so, as I said, I wake up the next day, ready to go.

Lex Fridman (38:26.020)

So as if nothing happened.

Lex Fridman (38:27.940)

To a certain degree.

Daniel Negreanu (38:28.780)

Obviously, you know, the more,

Lex Fridman (38:30.500)

the more it happens in the higher vines,

Daniel Negreanu (38:32.180)

like the one where I broke the selfie stick,

Lex Fridman (38:34.020)

I lost 500,000 in that tournament, right?

Lex Fridman (38:37.060)

And it was like the last card, it was painful.

Lex Fridman (38:38.980)

I think you lost.

Daniel Negreanu (38:40.260)

Yeah, that was great, that video.

Lex Fridman (38:43.340)

I think he lost.

Lex Fridman (38:45.020)

What led up to the selfie stick gate?

Lex Fridman (38:47.540)

Like what, you just lost your shit

Daniel Negreanu (38:49.620)

for a, like a hundred milliseconds.

Lex Fridman (38:53.780)

Like it was very brief.

Daniel Negreanu (38:55.340)

You're just like, what, the world wasn't making any sense.

Lex Fridman (38:58.300)

Like, how do I keep losing kind of thing?

Lex Fridman (39:00.780)

How did you, why did you lose your shit?

Lex Fridman (39:02.460)

You should never really think like this,

Lex Fridman (39:03.700)

but part of me felt like I deserved to win this, right?

Lex Fridman (39:06.940)

So part of me was like, listen,

Daniel Negreanu (39:07.780)

I've lost so many in the last two weeks, all right.

Lex Fridman (39:10.100)

Let, you know, the poker gods be kind to me right now.

Daniel Negreanu (39:12.660)

Let me win this.

Lex Fridman (39:13.500)

And it looked good.

Daniel Negreanu (39:14.380)

I was in a great situation on the flop,

Lex Fridman (39:17.140)

great situation on the turn.

Daniel Negreanu (39:18.260)

I'm about to be a competitor.

Lex Fridman (39:20.020)

I'm going to be a contender in this tournament

Daniel Negreanu (39:21.900)

to win a big prize pool and turn the whole thing around.

Lex Fridman (39:24.620)

It's all there for the taking.

Lex Fridman (39:26.460)

And then boom, the last card, it just, you know,

Lex Fridman (39:29.380)

it was a couple of weeks of frustration

Daniel Negreanu (39:31.500)

in the moment of filming that I just had, you know,

Lex Fridman (39:33.820)

sort of a visceral reaction, you know,

Lex Fridman (39:35.540)

and I smacked the, smacked the selfie stick.

Lex Fridman (39:37.780)

And then like, I, it was, I see a corner, it's safe.

Daniel Negreanu (39:40.340)

I threw the selfie stick on the ground.

Lex Fridman (39:41.900)

And of course, social media blows up about how, you know,

Lex Fridman (39:45.180)

it was a violent act, you know?

Lex Fridman (39:47.620)

I mean, it's like, have you never watched sports?

Daniel Negreanu (39:49.420)

Have you never seen a guy on the golf course

Lex Fridman (39:51.420)

smack his club or throw their helmet?

Daniel Negreanu (39:53.420)

Like, you know, there was the,

Lex Fridman (39:55.180)

there's a guy, Justin Bonomo is a poker player.

Lex Fridman (39:57.380)

And he's a super, how to, for lack of a better word,

Lex Fridman (40:00.580)

offended by everything.

Lex Fridman (40:02.020)

And he was equating my throwing a stick on the ground

Lex Fridman (40:04.740)

to violence against women, domestic abuse,

Lex Fridman (40:07.500)

and the idea that like,

Lex Fridman (40:09.180)

this makes women feel unsafe to play poker.

Lex Fridman (40:12.060)

And so that was kind of a running joke

Lex Fridman (40:13.460)

for the last two weeks where every time I sat at a table,

Daniel Negreanu (40:15.820)

the guys would be like, oh, I feel unsafe, I feel unsafe.

Lex Fridman (40:19.340)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (40:20.180)

Can you take me through the hand?

Lex Fridman (40:21.020)

Do you remember what the hand was?

Daniel Negreanu (40:21.840)

Like, what was the...

Lex Fridman (40:22.680)

Yeah, so it was a, you know, a player on the button raised.

Daniel Negreanu (40:25.700)

David Peters, very aggressive player.

Lex Fridman (40:27.460)

He went all in from the blind

Lex Fridman (40:29.060)

and I had a pair of pocket tens.

Lex Fridman (40:31.060)

So I went with my tens and he had queen 10 of spades.

Lex Fridman (40:34.100)

So I was good.

Lex Fridman (40:35.380)

I have way the best hand.

Lex Fridman (40:37.020)

And the flop was like king nine, three, one spade.

Lex Fridman (40:40.100)

Turn was like the eight of spades.

Lex Fridman (40:42.460)

So now he has a flush draw and the river was another spade.

Lex Fridman (40:45.220)

So he caught spade, spade, and he made a flush.

Daniel Negreanu (40:47.740)

Wow, but statistically you were winning the whole time.

Lex Fridman (40:50.660)

Yeah, I was winning it up until the last card.

Lex Fridman (40:52.300)

What did he go all in on?

Lex Fridman (40:53.860)

Was it a bluff?

Daniel Negreanu (40:54.900)

He made what's considered like a pretty standard play

Lex Fridman (40:57.140)

in modern poker where, you know, a guy raised

Lex Fridman (40:59.500)

and he was just trying to pick up, you know, what was there.

Lex Fridman (41:01.500)

And he ran into a hand in the big blind

Lex Fridman (41:03.140)

and you know, he got lucky.

Lex Fridman (41:04.420)

So what was the throughout the strategy of preparation,

Lex Fridman (41:08.420)

the strategy of play?

Lex Fridman (41:09.820)

So you're playing so many days.

Daniel Negreanu (41:12.580)

Are you trying to ignore the results

Lex Fridman (41:14.380)

and stick to a particular strategy?

Daniel Negreanu (41:16.900)

Yes, for the most part, you know,

Lex Fridman (41:19.500)

what I'm trying to do is like,

Daniel Negreanu (41:21.580)

I formulate a strategy for the whole seven weeks

Lex Fridman (41:23.260)

cause there's a varying degree of buy ins too.

Daniel Negreanu (41:25.940)

Like you have small ones, like 1500,

Lex Fridman (41:28.340)

then you've got like $250,000 buy in.

Lex Fridman (41:30.220)

So I map out the seven weeks and right,

Lex Fridman (41:33.460)

I'll give a little bit of mental energy to the 1500,

Daniel Negreanu (41:36.340)

which means I'll be on my phone.

Lex Fridman (41:37.580)

I'm not gonna, I don't care as much about this one,

Lex Fridman (41:39.700)

but the 250K fully engaged, fully focused, you know,

Lex Fridman (41:43.820)

up against obviously the higher the buy in,

Daniel Negreanu (41:45.740)

you know, super top competition.

Lex Fridman (41:48.260)

And you know, as far as strategy goes,

Daniel Negreanu (41:50.940)

focusing on each day, playing the best I can,

Lex Fridman (41:53.940)

not the result.

Daniel Negreanu (41:55.580)

Like, cause if you focus on the result,

Lex Fridman (41:57.260)

you're focusing in the wrong place.

Daniel Negreanu (41:58.700)

Your focus should be on the decisions you actually make.

Lex Fridman (42:02.020)

Right, and if you're making good decisions consistently,

Daniel Negreanu (42:04.620)

you have to continue to do that.

Lex Fridman (42:05.700)

The frustrating part is this,

Daniel Negreanu (42:06.980)

with poker, unlike chess or other things,

Lex Fridman (42:09.060)

making the best possible decision doesn't mean you win.

Daniel Negreanu (42:12.420)

Often you lose, you don't, chess.

Lex Fridman (42:15.540)

Well, Magnus Carlsen has also talked about that.

Daniel Negreanu (42:20.860)

There's some non deterministic thing about chess too,

Lex Fridman (42:25.300)

given the limited cognitive capacity of the human mind.

Lex Fridman (42:30.260)

So he says that the world championship should have

Lex Fridman (42:33.100)

20, 30, 40, 50 games, not the few that they have.

Daniel Negreanu (42:36.660)

It's too low of a sample.

Lex Fridman (42:38.300)

So in that sense, the high stakes poker tournaments

Daniel Negreanu (42:41.980)

are very too low sample.

Lex Fridman (42:44.300)

Sure, yeah.

Daniel Negreanu (42:45.340)

Well, when you think of the world series of poker,

Lex Fridman (42:47.220)

so as you said, I lost about 1 million, right?

Daniel Negreanu (42:49.820)

In one tournament, that was 500,000.

Lex Fridman (42:52.300)

So then, you know, like a few others here

Daniel Negreanu (42:53.820)

of high buying tournaments.

Lex Fridman (42:54.660)

So the sample or the amount was, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (42:57.700)

40, 50 total tournaments with, you know, high variance.

Lex Fridman (43:00.540)

And if you don't run well or do well in the highest buy ins,

Daniel Negreanu (43:03.340)

you know, you're gonna have a losing summer.

Lex Fridman (43:06.060)

So you did a podcast on the mental game a few years ago,

Lex Fridman (43:08.780)

but then that's just something you really care about.

Lex Fridman (43:10.660)

So what aspects of the mental game in poker

Lex Fridman (43:13.020)

is most difficult to master?

Lex Fridman (43:15.300)

I think the most difficult thing for people

Lex Fridman (43:16.940)

is self awareness, right?

Lex Fridman (43:18.860)

And resilience, self awareness to know, okay,

Daniel Negreanu (43:21.380)

so, you know, again, is it, am I not doing as well

Lex Fridman (43:24.940)

as I could be because of luck

Lex Fridman (43:26.340)

or is there things that I can learn?

Lex Fridman (43:28.020)

And I always look to mistakes as opportunities.

Daniel Negreanu (43:30.220)

I really do.

Lex Fridman (43:31.300)

When I make a mistake in a poker hand, right?

Daniel Negreanu (43:34.100)

Call it a breakdown or whatever,

Lex Fridman (43:36.340)

that's where breakthroughs happen.

Lex Fridman (43:38.180)

And I'm like, oh, you know what I could have done here?

Lex Fridman (43:40.940)

I could have done this and that would have been really good

Lex Fridman (43:43.620)

and I'm gonna do that going forward.

Lex Fridman (43:44.900)

So I think like with anything, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (43:48.060)

when you start out playing golf,

Lex Fridman (43:50.060)

like your goal is to just hit the ball, right?

Daniel Negreanu (43:52.860)

Then you try to hit it in the air,

Lex Fridman (43:54.780)

then you're trying to hit it straight,

Daniel Negreanu (43:56.220)

then you're trying to hit it on the green,

Lex Fridman (43:57.980)

then you're trying to hit it closer to the green

Daniel Negreanu (43:59.220)

to the point where the pros get where, you know,

Lex Fridman (44:02.180)

they're so finite, they're trying to hit it 63 yards

Lex Fridman (44:05.180)

and spin it back three yards.

Lex Fridman (44:06.940)

It's imperfect.

Daniel Negreanu (44:08.460)

Like they don't hit the perfect shot

Lex Fridman (44:10.340)

because the perfect shot for them is it goes in,

Lex Fridman (44:12.820)

but they try and make the mistakes smaller

Lex Fridman (44:14.580)

and smaller and smaller.

Daniel Negreanu (44:15.540)

Poker is the same.

Lex Fridman (44:17.060)

We all make mistakes consistently.

Daniel Negreanu (44:19.180)

The goal is to minimize, especially the big ones.

Lex Fridman (44:23.180)

What was the lowest point for you psychologically

Lex Fridman (44:27.500)

in poker in general, actually?

Lex Fridman (44:28.900)

Maybe it was this year, maybe it was in general.

Lex Fridman (44:31.220)

Do you remember there was times in your life,

Lex Fridman (44:33.380)

speaking of resilience,

Lex Fridman (44:34.860)

that were extremely difficult to you mentally?

Lex Fridman (44:37.660)

Yeah, so early on, you know, as basically as a teenager,

Daniel Negreanu (44:41.260)

I was playing in Toronto and then in my early 20s,

Lex Fridman (44:43.100)

I'm like, I'm going to Vegas, right?

Lex Fridman (44:44.780)

And I thought I was the best.

Lex Fridman (44:46.340)

I'm like 21 years old, I'm like, check me out, right?

Daniel Negreanu (44:49.620)

Show up with $3,000, 24 hours later, you know, money's gone.

Lex Fridman (44:54.940)

And I remember the moment vividly.

Daniel Negreanu (44:58.420)

It was at the Binion's Horse,

Lex Fridman (44:59.260)

it was about three in the morning.

Daniel Negreanu (45:00.580)

I was playing with seven other people.

Lex Fridman (45:02.740)

You know, I lost my last chips.

Daniel Negreanu (45:04.580)

I went to the bathroom, washed up, got out.

Lex Fridman (45:08.100)

They all left.

Lex Fridman (45:09.540)

And it was like a moment where I realized like, okay,

Lex Fridman (45:11.300)

in Toronto, I was the big fish.

Lex Fridman (45:12.900)

But here, they were playing because of me.

Lex Fridman (45:15.180)

I was the sucker.

Daniel Negreanu (45:16.180)

I remembered every one of their faces.

Lex Fridman (45:17.980)

And then I remember not having enough money

Daniel Negreanu (45:19.500)

to get back to budget suites where I was staying.

Lex Fridman (45:22.100)

So I walked, you know, I walked.

Lex Fridman (45:24.980)

And in that moment I was thinking about like,

Lex Fridman (45:26.500)

is this something that I'll be able to do?

Lex Fridman (45:28.020)

Am I good enough?

Lex Fridman (45:29.340)

You know, what am I going to do now?

Daniel Negreanu (45:30.700)

I'm in Vegas, I don't know anybody and I have no money,

Lex Fridman (45:34.020)

right?

Lex Fridman (45:34.860)

So that was certainly like what felt like a low point,

Lex Fridman (45:37.700)

walking back behind Paradise and Twain,

Daniel Negreanu (45:40.180)

which is not a great part of town.

Lex Fridman (45:43.100)

Where did you find the strength to answer yes

Lex Fridman (45:46.300)

to that question that you can still do good?

Lex Fridman (45:48.940)

I think this has been sort of a pattern in my life

Daniel Negreanu (45:51.100)

where like in the evening after it happens,

Lex Fridman (45:53.580)

like I don't have it.

Daniel Negreanu (45:54.780)

You know, I don't have that feeling of hope or,

Lex Fridman (45:57.700)

you know, resilience, if you will.

Daniel Negreanu (45:59.420)

I'm allowing myself to experience despair,

Lex Fridman (46:02.500)

which is exactly where I'm at.

Lex Fridman (46:04.260)

But then a good night's sleep, wake up the next morning

Lex Fridman (46:06.980)

and just within me, I have that inner confidence to say,

Lex Fridman (46:10.060)

you know what?

Lex Fridman (46:10.900)

Fuck it, get back on the hobby horse,

Lex Fridman (46:13.180)

find a way, make it work, right?

Lex Fridman (46:15.860)

But I do believe it's really therapeutic and worthwhile

Daniel Negreanu (46:19.060)

to allow yourself to feel and vent.

Lex Fridman (46:21.740)

So many people today, the Instagram culture world,

Daniel Negreanu (46:24.500)

I call it, it's like they want to act like they're perfect.

Lex Fridman (46:26.820)

Nothing bothers them, bullshit, right?

Daniel Negreanu (46:28.860)

You're pissed off, it's okay to show it.

Lex Fridman (46:30.500)

Emotion's fine, we all have it.

Daniel Negreanu (46:32.260)

There's no reason you have to suppress it.

Lex Fridman (46:34.140)

Obviously, you don't want to have guys throwing selfie sticks

Lex Fridman (46:36.380)

around the room every time they lose a pot, right?

Lex Fridman (46:39.060)

But, you know, a little bit of...

Daniel Negreanu (46:40.900)

You're gonna make everybody feel unsafe.

Lex Fridman (46:42.420)

Yeah, exactly.

Daniel Negreanu (46:43.260)

That happens.

Lex Fridman (46:44.420)

So you're saying, there is a culture of saying,

Daniel Negreanu (46:46.740)

you know, stay positive, all this kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (46:48.380)

but you know, when you feel despair, don't resist it,

Daniel Negreanu (46:52.020)

ride it out.

Lex Fridman (46:52.940)

Because it doesn't go away, right?

Daniel Negreanu (46:54.860)

That feeling, you know, you think you put it away

Lex Fridman (46:56.300)

in the pit of your stomach and you think, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (46:57.820)

it's gone, it's not, it's still there.

Lex Fridman (46:59.460)

Let yourself go, fuck!

Daniel Negreanu (47:00.940)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (47:01.780)

It's all right.

Daniel Negreanu (47:02.740)

You know, there's nothing wrong with being

Lex Fridman (47:05.060)

a little bit emotional, because once you've experienced it,

Daniel Negreanu (47:07.120)

you let it out, now you can move past it.

Lex Fridman (47:10.120)

Yeah, and I feel like, as long as your brain chemistry

Daniel Negreanu (47:12.740)

can support it, you can usually learn a good lesson

Lex Fridman (47:16.620)

from it, like you become stronger,

Daniel Negreanu (47:18.660)

you become more resilient through it.

Lex Fridman (47:20.300)

It's really interesting.

Lex Fridman (47:21.260)

And a good night's sleep can really help.

Lex Fridman (47:23.080)

Absolutely, yeah.

Lex Fridman (47:24.680)

So through 2022, and in general, what is a perfect day

Lex Fridman (47:29.560)

in the life of Daniel Negrano look like

Daniel Negreanu (47:31.460)

when you're, like on a day when you have to play

Lex Fridman (47:34.940)

a big game, big tournament game and so on?

Lex Fridman (47:37.620)

So like, what time do you wake up?

Lex Fridman (47:39.820)

What do you eat for breakfast?

Lex Fridman (47:41.220)

So my life is twofold.

Lex Fridman (47:43.660)

Like one, when I'm playing hardcore, and one when I'm not.

Lex Fridman (47:47.360)

And they look very different, right?

Lex Fridman (47:49.340)

So I'll give you a quick glimpse of like when I'm not,

Daniel Negreanu (47:51.860)

up at 10, you know, breakfast, in the gym at noon,

Lex Fridman (47:55.820)

you know, post workout,

Daniel Negreanu (47:58.780)

meal, coffee, walk, like, you know, I try to get,

Lex Fridman (48:04.460)

that's what I do for cardio, you know,

Lex Fridman (48:06.140)

and just very like home bodied.

Lex Fridman (48:07.340)

I don't leave the house.

Lex Fridman (48:08.260)

It's very like boring and mundane, right?

Lex Fridman (48:10.660)

Long distance walks.

Lex Fridman (48:11.580)

So like, what do you do when you're walking?

Lex Fridman (48:13.060)

You're thinking about stuff?

Daniel Negreanu (48:14.060)

Well, no, honestly, I just walk on the treadmill.

Lex Fridman (48:15.740)

I try to get 15,000 steps a day.

Lex Fridman (48:17.980)

And I just walk for basically like an hour

Lex Fridman (48:19.740)

while I watch a show or I'm on the computer

Daniel Negreanu (48:21.620)

or something like that, you know, I'm on the treadmill.

Lex Fridman (48:23.460)

Why walk and not running?

Daniel Negreanu (48:25.580)

Well, I mean, I think walking, I mean,

Lex Fridman (48:27.580)

I do a little bit of running, but hardly any.

Daniel Negreanu (48:29.380)

I don't enjoy it.

Lex Fridman (48:30.660)

Like, I just like walking.

Lex Fridman (48:31.900)

And frankly, for fat loss,

Lex Fridman (48:33.180)

when it's usually what I'm doing after big poker tournaments

Lex Fridman (48:36.220)

is getting back in shape, that walking's ideal for it, right?

Lex Fridman (48:40.140)

So essentially it's like the tale of two.

Daniel Negreanu (48:41.700)

During the World Series of Poker,

Lex Fridman (48:43.580)

all my sort of structured life thrown out the window.

Daniel Negreanu (48:47.740)

There's no walking.

Lex Fridman (48:48.860)

There's very little walking.

Daniel Negreanu (48:50.180)

There's very little working out.

Lex Fridman (48:51.340)

There's very little anything.

Daniel Negreanu (48:52.180)

I go into the World Series, you know,

Lex Fridman (48:54.140)

like this year I went in around 157

Lex Fridman (48:57.460)

and I expected to gain about 10 pounds

Lex Fridman (48:59.420)

during the World Series.

Daniel Negreanu (49:00.260)

Not good pounds, it wasn't muscle,

Lex Fridman (49:01.940)

but that's about what I did, 165.

Lex Fridman (49:03.700)

And then I spend the next month trying to, you know, lose it.

Lex Fridman (49:06.580)

But during the World Series, when I'm playing,

Daniel Negreanu (49:08.500)

the most important thing without question

Lex Fridman (49:10.860)

that I have to focus on,

Lex Fridman (49:12.060)

and this is why I stopped focusing

Lex Fridman (49:13.980)

on working on all this stuff is sleep.

Daniel Negreanu (49:16.460)

If I'm not rested, I'm useless.

Lex Fridman (49:18.380)

If I only get five, six hours

Lex Fridman (49:20.380)

and I have to go back the next day and play 14 hours,

Lex Fridman (49:23.500)

the chances of me being at my best, very, very slim.

Lex Fridman (49:26.460)

So sleep is a priority.

Lex Fridman (49:27.500)

What's the perfect amount of sleep for you on those days?

Lex Fridman (49:30.060)

Eight, seven?

Lex Fridman (49:30.900)

So eight hours is my go to every night.

Daniel Negreanu (49:33.980)

During the World Series of Poker, it's just not possible

Lex Fridman (49:36.540)

because of the way that it's structured.

Daniel Negreanu (49:37.900)

Sometimes the tournaments end at 2.15 a.m.

Lex Fridman (49:40.980)

I get home about three o clock.

Daniel Negreanu (49:44.340)

Takes me 30 minutes, 40 minutes to get to sleep.

Lex Fridman (49:46.900)

So now let's say I'm in bed by four.

Daniel Negreanu (49:48.780)

Well, the tournament's at, you know, two.

Lex Fridman (49:51.660)

So I have to get up and whatever.

Lex Fridman (49:53.540)

So it's very difficult to get exactly eight

Lex Fridman (49:55.060)

a lot of the time.

Daniel Negreanu (49:56.100)

You know, and also get back there in time.

Lex Fridman (49:57.660)

Is there any hacks to quiet the mind?

Daniel Negreanu (50:01.380)

Because you're going on a pretty intense rollercoaster

Lex Fridman (50:04.580)

mentally when you're playing.

Daniel Negreanu (50:07.780)

Is there any tricks to getting to sleep

Lex Fridman (50:10.100)

given the rollercoaster?

Daniel Negreanu (50:10.940)

I've been very lucky.

Lex Fridman (50:12.060)

Like I'm blessed.

Daniel Negreanu (50:12.900)

I don't know if it's because of diet or what,

Lex Fridman (50:14.700)

but I've always been a very good sleeper.

Daniel Negreanu (50:16.700)

You just shut off.

Lex Fridman (50:17.580)

I get to sleep and I sleep like a baby, you know?

Lex Fridman (50:19.980)

And I also nap really well.

Lex Fridman (50:21.840)

Like during the World Series, sometimes what will happen

Daniel Negreanu (50:23.660)

is let's say I get knocked out of one event at 4 p.m.

Lex Fridman (50:26.340)

And there's another one that I can jump in.

Daniel Negreanu (50:28.460)

Instead of jumping right into it,

Lex Fridman (50:30.100)

I'll go into like a private room and take 45 minute nap.

Lex Fridman (50:34.220)

And you know, and give me enough energy to continue

Lex Fridman (50:36.980)

and sort of reset my mind.

Daniel Negreanu (50:38.300)

Yeah, and it solves a lot of problems with the nap too.

Lex Fridman (50:41.060)

It does.

Daniel Negreanu (50:41.900)

Yeah, I feel like the nap is a magical trick in life.

Lex Fridman (50:46.180)

What else, diet wise?

Lex Fridman (50:47.540)

What do you, your mind is going, you know,

Lex Fridman (50:52.220)

pretty intensely all day.

Daniel Negreanu (50:53.980)

Yeah, so during like, like I said,

Lex Fridman (50:55.860)

when I'm not playing, I'm super regimented.

Daniel Negreanu (50:58.740)

You know, I have, I literally measure everything.

Lex Fridman (51:01.740)

You know, I count calories, I count macros,

Daniel Negreanu (51:04.420)

I follow it to a T.

Lex Fridman (51:05.900)

Pretty balanced diet or any?

Daniel Negreanu (51:07.420)

I'm a vegan.

Lex Fridman (51:08.260)

Vegan, yeah.

Lex Fridman (51:09.100)

So it's, you know, a vegan diet, like.

Lex Fridman (51:10.540)

But balanced in terms of carbs and protein.

Daniel Negreanu (51:12.140)

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I eat a healthy amount.

Lex Fridman (51:13.980)

I'm doing probably 150 grams of protein,

Daniel Negreanu (51:17.820)

like 60 grams of fat, 50, and then about.

Lex Fridman (51:20.140)

And try to measure it all out.

Daniel Negreanu (51:21.460)

I do, yeah, I basically, I created a meal plan.

Lex Fridman (51:23.460)

So what I did for myself is,

Daniel Negreanu (51:24.700)

cause I'm really anal and I made a spreadsheet

Lex Fridman (51:26.780)

with like a day's food and I have six different ones.

Lex Fridman (51:29.660)

So I just follow it.

Lex Fridman (51:30.940)

Like I don't, it actually makes my life so much easier

Daniel Negreanu (51:34.580)

when I don't have to think about what I'm going to eat

Lex Fridman (51:35.860)

for lunch or what I'm going to eat for dinner.

Daniel Negreanu (51:37.060)

I already know what I'm going to eat.

Lex Fridman (51:38.100)

I already wrote it down and it doesn't get boring

Daniel Negreanu (51:40.300)

because I'm switching it up every day, you know,

Lex Fridman (51:42.460)

every six days and occasionally I'll, you know,

Daniel Negreanu (51:45.140)

splurge or do something different.

Lex Fridman (51:46.300)

During the World Series of Poker,

Daniel Negreanu (51:47.900)

I eat whatever the fuck I want to eat.

Lex Fridman (51:50.140)

Like it's at 2 a.m. I don't crave

Daniel Negreanu (51:52.820)

like a broccoli carrot salad.

Lex Fridman (51:54.900)

Like I want chocolate, candy and chips.

Lex Fridman (51:58.660)

So I'll just do it.

Lex Fridman (51:59.500)

So you listen to the cravings.

Daniel Negreanu (52:01.340)

Yeah, I realized like.

Lex Fridman (52:02.900)

It's surprising because like,

Daniel Negreanu (52:04.180)

you're so regimented outside of that.

Lex Fridman (52:06.580)

It's really difficult.

Daniel Negreanu (52:07.740)

Like I've done it before

Lex Fridman (52:08.860)

where I played the World Series of Poker

Lex Fridman (52:10.420)

and I made it a point to work out every day.

Lex Fridman (52:13.140)

But what that did was it sacrificed sleep.

Lex Fridman (52:15.780)

So then I found like at 1 a.m. I would be more tired,

Lex Fridman (52:18.780)

you know, because I've expended more energy

Daniel Negreanu (52:20.620)

than I would otherwise.

Lex Fridman (52:21.460)

So I essentially like look at the World Series

Daniel Negreanu (52:23.740)

is six, seven weeks where my body's

Lex Fridman (52:25.220)

just gonna take a beating, not like UFC fighter,

Lex Fridman (52:27.940)

but like a different kind of beating.

Lex Fridman (52:29.380)

And that's okay because I have so much confidence

Daniel Negreanu (52:31.620)

that within six weeks of just like eating right

Lex Fridman (52:34.980)

and working out, I can get back to where I was.

Lex Fridman (52:36.820)

But it's just hilarious to me that you'd be eating chocolate.

Lex Fridman (52:39.100)

What eating chocolate in bed

Daniel Negreanu (52:40.420)

as you're trying to get to sleep is this.

Lex Fridman (52:42.820)

Like literally a bag of like chips or chocolate,

Daniel Negreanu (52:45.580)

like on my way home and before bed,

Lex Fridman (52:48.260)

you know, just whatever.

Daniel Negreanu (52:49.300)

This is what the professional athlete does

Lex Fridman (52:51.340)

at the highest, most difficult event of his career.

Daniel Negreanu (52:54.060)

Okay, so what else is there in terms of mental preparation

Lex Fridman (52:58.620)

and focus and meditation, those kinds of things

Lex Fridman (53:01.380)

leading up to the games?

Lex Fridman (53:03.100)

Is there anything you like to,

Lex Fridman (53:05.260)

like any rituals you like to follow?

Lex Fridman (53:07.860)

So yeah, I have dabbled in the past

Daniel Negreanu (53:10.100)

with like meditation and different things like that.

Lex Fridman (53:11.740)

And I know that there's health benefits to it.

Lex Fridman (53:13.540)

And I understand that a lot of people get a lot from it

Lex Fridman (53:16.340)

and I've done it for a good amount of time,

Daniel Negreanu (53:18.540)

like long periods of time.

Lex Fridman (53:20.340)

I found that for me, I think it was predominantly placebo.

Daniel Negreanu (53:23.740)

Like it really wasn't doing anything for me

Lex Fridman (53:26.380)

that I felt like it was, it felt like I was doing something,

Lex Fridman (53:28.540)

but I really, I didn't see any specific results from it.

Lex Fridman (53:31.860)

So I don't really do that too much.

Daniel Negreanu (53:33.980)

One thing that I will do for me is leading up

Lex Fridman (53:37.340)

is there's so much footage now

Daniel Negreanu (53:39.260)

that I'll make it a point to like watch my opponents

Lex Fridman (53:42.260)

and then with like my phone, I'll take notes

Lex Fridman (53:45.620)

and I'll keep track of different things that I'm seeing.

Lex Fridman (53:47.980)

And that sort of, and then what I'll do

Daniel Negreanu (53:49.500)

is I'll formulate a game plan.

Lex Fridman (53:50.940)

Like I'm playing the Poker Masters coming up

Daniel Negreanu (53:52.940)

in about a week.

Lex Fridman (53:54.100)

And I'll look to see the tendencies

Daniel Negreanu (53:55.900)

of what my opponents are doing.

Lex Fridman (53:56.780)

And then I'll come up with like some things

Daniel Negreanu (53:58.540)

that I'm gonna do, some tricks of the trade, if you will.

Lex Fridman (54:00.500)

Not game theory optimal stuff,

Daniel Negreanu (54:02.380)

stuff that I think, oh, they're making a mistake here

Lex Fridman (54:04.540)

that I can exploit.

Lex Fridman (54:05.900)

And then I look to do that in different ways

Lex Fridman (54:07.900)

and always look to throw curve balls.

Lex Fridman (54:11.700)

How hard is that process?

Lex Fridman (54:14.220)

Do you enjoy it or is it like really hard work

Daniel Negreanu (54:16.180)

to analyze the players to try to understand

Lex Fridman (54:18.980)

what are the different holes?

Lex Fridman (54:20.100)

What are the different mistakes?

Lex Fridman (54:21.100)

What are the strengths to avoid and that kind of stuff?

Daniel Negreanu (54:23.700)

I think the only thing that makes it harder

Lex Fridman (54:25.580)

is when you're young, right?

Lex Fridman (54:27.340)

And you're in your twenties

Lex Fridman (54:28.180)

and you're trying to make your nest egg.

Daniel Negreanu (54:29.820)

You're like, you're trying to make your retirement money.

Lex Fridman (54:31.700)

You're hungry, right?

Daniel Negreanu (54:32.860)

You're like clubber Lang and you know the gym, you're hungry.

Lex Fridman (54:35.380)

Whereas, you know, Rocky's in there taking pictures

Lex Fridman (54:37.380)

and smiling and doing commercials and stuff like that.

Lex Fridman (54:39.860)

So I am 47, I'm financially okay.

Daniel Negreanu (54:42.380)

I don't need to win.

Lex Fridman (54:44.020)

I don't need to compete at the highest levels.

Lex Fridman (54:46.140)

So I think it was a boxer.

Lex Fridman (54:47.540)

I don't remember which one.

Daniel Negreanu (54:48.900)

When asked this, he was asked the question,

Lex Fridman (54:51.500)

how do you get up in the morning still

Lex Fridman (54:53.020)

and do those morning runs?

Lex Fridman (54:54.660)

And he says, you know what?

Daniel Negreanu (54:55.500)

I'll be honest with you.

Lex Fridman (54:56.460)

It's a lot more difficult doing the 4 a.m. run

Lex Fridman (54:58.780)

in silk pajamas, right?

Lex Fridman (55:00.700)

It just is, right?

Lex Fridman (55:02.020)

But I've always been self motivated

Lex Fridman (55:05.700)

and I've always found a way.

Lex Fridman (55:07.020)

So it's harder in the sense of like, it's not a need.

Lex Fridman (55:10.900)

I can still get by without it.

Lex Fridman (55:12.940)

But so in that regard, it does feel like a little bit

Lex Fridman (55:15.540)

of work where like, oh my God,

Daniel Negreanu (55:16.700)

that's a lot of footage I gotta get through.

Lex Fridman (55:18.900)

And I don't know that I have the time or I don't know

Daniel Negreanu (55:20.300)

that I wanna spend 10 hours of my day doing that

Lex Fridman (55:23.980)

when I could be doing other things.

Lex Fridman (55:25.620)

I mean, what do you still love about poker?

Lex Fridman (55:28.980)

When you said, when you enter,

Daniel Negreanu (55:30.500)

like the times you catch yourself just being able

Lex Fridman (55:34.380)

to sort of take in the awe of it.

Lex Fridman (55:37.820)

What aspects do you love?

Lex Fridman (55:39.260)

I think that like for me,

Daniel Negreanu (55:40.380)

I've always been really competitive,

Lex Fridman (55:42.100)

but I was never gonna be a professional athlete

Daniel Negreanu (55:44.060)

or a professional snooker player.

Lex Fridman (55:45.140)

I wasn't good enough at any of that stuff.

Daniel Negreanu (55:46.740)

I didn't have the body type, whatever.

Lex Fridman (55:49.100)

But poker, it sort of levels the playing field, right?

Daniel Negreanu (55:51.540)

You're six, five, 240, big deal.

Lex Fridman (55:54.220)

We're not fighting here.

Daniel Negreanu (55:55.860)

We're fighting a different type of war.

Lex Fridman (55:57.540)

So the competitive aspect,

Daniel Negreanu (55:58.940)

I also have always been fueled throughout my career

Lex Fridman (56:02.660)

by doubters.

Lex Fridman (56:04.180)

So this is probably unhealthy,

Lex Fridman (56:05.660)

but every time people say like, you're done,

Daniel Negreanu (56:09.020)

you're washed up, you can't win anymore,

Lex Fridman (56:10.460)

it just makes me wanna prove them wrong, right?

Lex Fridman (56:13.580)

So I have a little bit of that in me,

Lex Fridman (56:15.260)

which again, you're reading the comments

Lex Fridman (56:17.060)

and all these kinds of,

Lex Fridman (56:17.900)

like I've been told many times throughout my career

Daniel Negreanu (56:19.680)

for the last 15 that I'm done.

Lex Fridman (56:21.180)

I can't compete anymore.

Lex Fridman (56:22.540)

And I enjoy proving them wrong.

Lex Fridman (56:27.260)

Yeah, the game has changed so much.

Daniel Negreanu (56:31.780)

The greats of the past surely cannot be the greats

Lex Fridman (56:34.340)

of the present.

Daniel Negreanu (56:35.180)

That kind of commentary will continue for every sport.

Lex Fridman (56:38.820)

And certainly for poker,

Daniel Negreanu (56:40.020)

because poker really changed a lot

Lex Fridman (56:42.100)

over the past couple of decades.

Lex Fridman (56:43.700)

Can you speak to how much it has changed?

Lex Fridman (56:45.660)

Yeah.

Daniel Negreanu (56:46.500)

Because you've been at the top for so long.

Lex Fridman (56:47.420)

Yeah, so complacency is a big issue

Lex Fridman (56:49.380)

for people who make it, if you will, right?

Lex Fridman (56:51.360)

So in my era of the poker boom, around the early 2000s,

Daniel Negreanu (56:54.300)

there was a group of players who were the big names,

Lex Fridman (56:56.500)

the stars of the game.

Daniel Negreanu (56:57.700)

Well, a lot of them had their egos out of whack

Lex Fridman (57:01.380)

where they just felt like, okay, I'm the best, that's it.

Daniel Negreanu (57:03.920)

Like, no, there's young guys learning,

Lex Fridman (57:05.620)

there's new software, there's solvers,

Daniel Negreanu (57:07.900)

there's all these kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (57:08.740)

And if you're not keeping up, then you'll get surpassed.

Lex Fridman (57:11.100)

And I remember myself at a very early age saying,

Lex Fridman (57:14.140)

I never want to be that guy.

Lex Fridman (57:15.300)

And it was one of my first events in the late 90s.

Lex Fridman (57:17.820)

I was the young buck playing with the Tom McAvoy's

Lex Fridman (57:21.020)

and Brad Doughty, the guys of the era, right?

Lex Fridman (57:23.500)

And I was doing things more aggressively

Lex Fridman (57:25.420)

and they were scoffing at all these young kids

Lex Fridman (57:27.900)

with their aggressive three and all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (57:29.900)

And they were sort of mocking it, you know?

Lex Fridman (57:31.120)

And I thought, never be that guy.

Daniel Negreanu (57:33.180)

Always have the humility to be introspective

Lex Fridman (57:35.920)

and always have the respect for your opponents

Daniel Negreanu (57:38.140)

that while you think you've got it all figured out,

Lex Fridman (57:41.180)

they're learning new things and you can learn from them.

Lex Fridman (57:43.340)

So I've always been willing to sort of swallow my pride

Lex Fridman (57:46.540)

and get coached by younger players

Daniel Negreanu (57:48.780)

who I might even be better than,

Lex Fridman (57:50.240)

but they see blind spots that I have that I might not.

Lex Fridman (57:53.260)

And they, you know, they helped me improve my game.

Lex Fridman (57:55.220)

I've always been willing to sort of look every six months

Lex Fridman (57:57.900)

or a year and say, is what I'm doing working?

Lex Fridman (57:59.300)

And if not, how do I get better?

Lex Fridman (58:01.620)

But most people from my generation, they go the other way.

Lex Fridman (58:06.320)

I don't know, they just have this idea

Daniel Negreanu (58:07.420)

that they figured it all out.

Lex Fridman (58:08.260)

Once you feel like you've mastered it,

Daniel Negreanu (58:10.020)

there's nothing left to learn.

Lex Fridman (58:10.860)

That's the moment where everyone else

Daniel Negreanu (58:12.540)

starts to surpass you.

Lex Fridman (58:14.820)

That's the moment where you lose the mastery

Daniel Negreanu (58:17.780)

because it's always evolving.

Lex Fridman (58:18.860)

How has the game changed?

Lex Fridman (58:20.660)

So the game has changed

Lex Fridman (58:21.620)

in terms of the way people learn it, right?

Daniel Negreanu (58:23.780)

When I started out, the only way to learn how to play poker

Lex Fridman (58:25.660)

was to sit your ass on the chair and play.

Lex Fridman (58:28.380)

In person?

Lex Fridman (58:29.200)

Yes, in person, play.

Daniel Negreanu (58:31.060)

Maybe you jot down hands on a notepad.

Lex Fridman (58:32.820)

We didn't even have cell phones back then, right?

Lex Fridman (58:34.740)

So I would write notes.

Lex Fridman (58:36.380)

I actually brought a notepad.

Lex Fridman (58:37.860)

And then you don't analyze it

Lex Fridman (58:39.100)

and sort of try to figure it out that way

Lex Fridman (58:41.340)

and think about maybe talking to friends

Lex Fridman (58:44.580)

and different players.

Daniel Negreanu (58:45.520)

Like when I grew up, there was John Jawanda,

Lex Fridman (58:47.220)

Alan Cunningham and Phil Ivey.

Lex Fridman (58:48.700)

And we would sort of create

Lex Fridman (58:50.580)

like a little bit of a mastermind.

Lex Fridman (58:52.220)

Well, how would you play this hand?

Lex Fridman (58:53.220)

What would you do here?

Lex Fridman (58:54.060)

That was the extent of it, right?

Lex Fridman (58:56.080)

We never had the correct answers.

Daniel Negreanu (58:57.900)

We always had theories about what might be right.

Lex Fridman (59:00.480)

Not until about five, six years ago

Daniel Negreanu (59:03.180)

where everything changed.

Lex Fridman (59:04.580)

Where artificial intelligence created solvers

Daniel Negreanu (59:07.500)

that will specifically say, okay, this is the optimal play.

Lex Fridman (59:11.020)

This is the game theory optimal play.

Lex Fridman (59:12.780)

So now it introduced poker to a whole new group

Lex Fridman (59:16.180)

of like personality types.

Daniel Negreanu (59:18.500)

In my day, it was people that were dregs of society

Lex Fridman (59:21.440)

that didn't fit in, not college goers with a degree.

Daniel Negreanu (59:24.220)

These are people who were street hustlers playing pool.

Lex Fridman (59:26.540)

They found poker and they had these unique lives, right?

Lex Fridman (59:29.640)

But now because poker can be studied,

Lex Fridman (59:32.740)

much like you study university or college,

Daniel Negreanu (59:35.300)

you had, for example, the German contingent

Lex Fridman (59:37.440)

who was literally analyzing data

Lex Fridman (59:39.300)

and coming up with strategies based on this.

Lex Fridman (59:41.300)

And it's like, what?

Lex Fridman (59:42.620)

And the old guy, got to play by feel or whatever.

Lex Fridman (59:45.780)

And they're like, they're learning.

Lex Fridman (59:47.340)

So I guess the way that you describe it is like

Lex Fridman (59:49.460)

in the old days, it required skill and talent,

Lex Fridman (59:52.140)

a card sense, right?

Lex Fridman (59:53.860)

That was the only way to become good.

Lex Fridman (59:55.100)

And today that's not the case.

Lex Fridman (59:56.960)

Good study habits, a good work ethic in that regard

Daniel Negreanu (59:59.540)

can make you like a really good player.