No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 235: Poker Pro Daniel Negreanu

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

You guys wanted gambling stories. This guy's got 'em. Poker legend Daniel Negreanu joins us to talk about his poker career, life in Vegas, and most importantly, golf gambling stories. A lot of pro golfers are hesitant to spill the details on betting on the course, but Daniel is not. He talks about losing millions to Phil Ivey, betting over $500K that he could break 80, golf lessons, and the Vegas golf scene in great detail. This was a fun change of pace, and thanks to Daniel for the time.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Alright guys, welcome back to the podcast. Got a little change of pace for you today. I get a lot of feedback from people saying they want to hear gambling stories. You know, some of the pros that we've had on are a little bit hesitant to name dollar

amounts or tell the really, really good gambling story. So I went a little outside the box, had somebody from Daniel in the ground who's camp reach out and suggested we have Daniel on. He gets to a little bit of his background, but just to touch on it here, he's a professional poker player, maybe the most famous professional poker player in the world, not named Phil Helmuth. He's had unbelievable career and he's going to touch on that and lives a gambling lifestyle and also plays some golf and bets a ton of money doing it in the process. And he names the actual numbers and talks a lot about the actual crazy bets that he's

made. So to tie this in, we had to, this was too easy. This integration was almost too easy to talk about the suits. True vest golf balls from Calloway. They have the spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds. These are what I play exclusively now. So what I'll do is I'll usually start with the spades. Those are my favorite.

As soon as I hit one in the water, I'll switch up suits and continue that cycle until I'm probably all the way through a dozen. I've been talking a bit about this on the refuge, just about how much they've helped my putting. I don't know why. I think it's just because I don't have to see a line rolling end over end and I don't have to see how off-center a lot of my putts are. Every putt that I hit looks really perfect.

It's probably not, but it looks that way. It almost feels a lot more like you're kicking a soccer ball than it does rolling the golf ball. Again, I have no idea why that works. I actually hit a couple of putts with some non-truevice balls last week in Reno and the results were pretty shaky. I'm totally sold on these things. You can go to calawaygolf.com.

It's the same crombs off golf ball that you know and love. You can get, you buy a dozen and it gives you a sleeve of each suit. So please, I promise to do that. You will not regret it. Just give it a try. If you know somebody or see somebody with the truest balls, just give them a try. I promise this is not a gimmick. I thought it was a gimmick when they came out, but they have honestly helped me so much with my game.

So with that much further delay, again, we're gonna talk some poker here with Daniel. I thought it's important to set the scene and hopefully there are some poker fans out there that know and are and are familiar with Daniel and some of his stories. So we're gonna talk some of that and then the rest of the time we are going to talk golf and then it comes back around a little bit to poker at the end. But I do hope this is worth your time and thank you very much for tuning in. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang-Up podcast. We're going a bit outside the box with this one. This is something I was always been intrigued to do with professional poker player, maybe the professional poker player. Mr. Daniel Negrano, Daniel, are you curious as to what you're doing on a golf podcast

or do you know what you're doing here? I think I know what I'm doing because poker, gambling, golf all sort of go hand in hand to a certain degree. Without a doubt. I kind of do want to tap into that gambling mentality because I know I've heard some stories about you on the golf course and the level of play that some of the games you get yourself in. But for the listeners at home,

I promise we will bring this around to golf, but I want to set the scene some with poker. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are familiar with you, but in case they aren't, kind of give us your background in poker and what your career has been like to this point. Well, I'm 45 as of a few days ago and I was inducted into the Hall of Fame as early as you can at first ballot when I was age 40.

I was the all-time money leader in poker history for most of my career. One, World Series Book of Player of the Year, twice, six gold bracelets, over 40 million in earnings in tournament poker, and lots of other stuff. So yeah, I've had a very good poker career and my golf results are a lot less illustrious. I was going to say, you probably don't have the resume that you could just spout off with golf like you do there. But first of all, let's start with an easy transition. What are the similarities and differences between for yourself? I mean, you're obviously a professional at poker and one of the best ever at it.

How does that at all translate into golf? And what's that like kind of a sport that you're not the best at? And how do you kind of balance how you gamble on the golf course? So first and foremost, there are so many similarities in terms of like what happens to you mentally in poker tournaments and in golf tournaments. So when you hit a bad golf shot, right, where you really mess up and you screwed up and you put yourself in a bad spot. The question is, what happens next? In poker, we call it tilt.

Let's say you get pocket aces, you go all in, you know, or you make a mistake or something like that and somebody beats you with a nine and a four and it drives you crazy. If you're still thinking about that poker hand, like an hour later or two hours later, you're done because you're not focused on what you need to be doing. I would imagine the same as true.

I remember Tiger Woods was quoted once, saying, you know, because he was attacking putts. His first putt pretty aggressively and people were like, how can you, you know, attack your, why are you doing that? And you're leaving yourself like five, six feet back on the second putt. He's like, I'm not thinking about the next putt. You know, he's focused on the putt at hand. And I think those that have the mental ability to, especially in the crunch, like in a major, right?

And on the final round, you're up by two. And all of a sudden, you've got to keep your head straight on what you've got to be doing here and not overthinking things. And in both, well, endeavors, poker and golf, mental fortitude is like super important. Well, how did you get into poker? Like what was the beginning of your career?

Like, and I'm curious to kind of hear how the world of poker has changed. Really in the television era in the last couple of decades. Well, I started as a teenager as a snooker player, which is part of the reason I'm arguably the best putter in the world right now. Who is arguing this? Uh, not well, Tiger Woods tried to claim that he was better than me and I told him I don't think so, but we don't be able to prove it on the course. We never ended up doing that. Yeah, so I started playing pool and then through that met some

people who played poker, played some underground games and things like that and then started to take him more seriously and then made the move to Las Vegas, which was the hotbed for poker at the time. Well, did you have success right away in poker? I guess how did you kind of hone your skills and develop into what you eventually became as a poker player? Like, like with anything, right? Like, how many people would go out and go for the first time and be really good at it, right? So, I wasn't very good at poker in the beginning, but I was a quick, quick study. And I was engaged and I've always been a very competitive person. So I started to like work hard and study what other people were doing and what was working. And you know within a few months I was beating the game that I was in, you know,

starting Toronto. And then of course when I made the trip to Las Vegas, you know, I was like a hometown hero and they've seen, you know, hundreds of those come through town. And so as expected, you know, I got my butt kicked by the actual, you know, top players and had to go back Toronto, rebuild my bankroll and you know, kept going back until finally the light bulb went off and I was able to make some adjustments and start winning. I was curious if there ever was there a time maybe it's in that initial trip to Vegas or maybe as you're emerging into it, being a really good winning player was there ever a time when you look down at that particular hand maybe in a cash game you're like holy shit. I am playing for way too much money right now. Was there ever a moment because right now, you know, hearing kind of the money that you throw around the golf course doesn't seem to phase you much, but there was a time in your life I would imagine that that wasn't always the case. Oh, there were countless times where I'd be at the Marage, which is where the, you know,

the poker center of the poker world was for the late 90s and have all my money on the table. I remember one morning, I woke up with just $600 and I went to go play $20 and $40 limits, which is way higher than you should play with $200, $600. I remember within an hour, I lost 512 of it. I had 82 bucks left and I was like, screw this. They're not going to bust me in this game. So I took, I took my 80 bucks and I went to go play one to five dollar seven stud with nobody under 70 years old. Right? And I won like a hundred

bucks in that game. So now I've got about 182. Now I say, let's pick it up and go to $6.12. This is all in the same day. I win another 100. I got 286. I'm like, you know what? Let's give 10 20 a try. I win about 420. So now I'm back to 686. I'm like, let's go back to that 2040 game. I win about 2000 in the 2040 game. I never played 4080, which was a higher limit at the highest limit at the time. And I said, screw it. Let's go. So I turned that $82, which I didn't quit on and turned it into 6,000 by the end of the night. Oh, and what was your first,. What was your first big tournament winning? What was that like?

Well, I think there's always different scale for big because when I was in Toronto, $19,000 was big. The first big one that put me on the map was in 1998. It was the first ever World Series of Poker Venn had ever played. I jumped in there, you know, and was able to go all the way and win like a hundred worth. It was like, how much was it? 180,000 at the time, which didn't last very long,

but you know, it was a good score. Do you have like good years in poker like you do good and bad years in poker like you would in golf? Is it very a lot from year to year? Oh, even more so than golf. Like, listen, if you're a top 10 golfer, you're gonna have, you're gonna put up results regardless. Like, there is some luck in golf,

but nowhere near as much luck as there is in poker tournaments. You can be a good player, a winning player, and play well all year and still have a losing year. You know, that's doable. I did it about two, three years ago, I had like a very small losing year, well, small relative like $70,000 or $80,000. The year, I had like a very small losing year, well, small relative like $70,000 to $80,000.

The year before I'd won like 2.5 million in the year after I won 1.7 million. So yeah, in short term, luck plays a big role. So, you know, and that's one other thing. That's one of the reasons that it requires such like mental strength and fortitude. I think any poker player would benefit from playing golf and any golfer would benefit from dealing with like bad luck at poker. Yeah, I've always absolutely loved poker. I think I got kind of swept up in it right during that TV boom era in the early 2000s. Did that help like for a player like yourself who was already established at that point? Did that TV boom bring a lot more

people to Vegas ready to play and did you just start sweeping up at that moment? Well, yeah, I made the tournaments huge. You know, like tournaments that might have seen maybe 30, 40 people now ballooned to like 4,500 overnight because of the televised product. And then all the other opportunities came in. Sponsorship opportunities, if you're a prominent name in the game, there was online company spending money. And so there's a lot of different ways that money just flew in during that boom.

So when did you pick up a golf club for the first time? Were you always a golfer or was this kind of just the way I've always understood it is, you know, you guys love the gamble on pretty much anything and that was one more thing to gamble on and a lot of poker players end up taking up golf later in life than most of us have played it a long time. Is that the case? Oh, yeah. I don't think I started until I was about 30 or 31 years old right around that time and I didn't get a coach or anything like that and I developed, I think the flattest

swing possible. Like I basically tried to, I mean it was like, it was really pathetic, I wish I could show you how particular it was, but I tried not to, like, I tried to keep my left arm straight the whole time, never move it, which doesn't sound all that bad. But that's it. And then just come through. And what do you know? Like, it didn't hurt my back a little bit, too.

I was just not swinging my forearm was pretty bad. But after a while, once we started gambling bigger, I realized, yeah, I might need to get better at this game. Was it a bet that brought you into it or did you start losing right away and learn pretty quickly that you needed to improve to make money on the course? Well, at the very beginning, it was just a couple of friends,

we were like, let's try golf. I'm like, okay, cool. But pretty shortly after that, once I started to get a little bit better, gambling became a big part of it. And at that point, I still not in God. I didn't have coaching. And I remember one time going up to the tee and all the old hustlers came out for this because, you know, poker players

who golf, nobody has a handicap. They all tell you what they shoot about. Oh, shoot about 90. You know, I'm about a bogey golfer. I played against the guy who was a bogey golfer, Mike Sexton. He shot 75. I don't know how many bogey golfer is that had three. He birdied four, five and six on Sexton, he shot 75. I don't know how many Bogey golfer's that had three. He birdied four, five and six on the way to a smooth 75. Hey, I played four times in a row. I played with a guy who had the best round of his life.

It's like, this seems like coincidental. And I remember just going up to the first tee the very first time, and Doyle Brunson would say, OK, I'll give you three a side. And I said, OK, do we Tom? Go, I'll give you four. OK, chiprie, so I'll give you five. I said, OK, I didn't even negotiate.

You know, and that first day, I think I lost like 580,000. Okay, to those guys. And then of course, still Ivy, you know, we used to golf a lot back in those days. And I remember one time at Shadow Creek, I guess my grip was a mess. And I didn't have anyone who was there to help me at the time and he did, and everyone else did.

And I just didn't have a chance. Like I couldn't get the ball in the air and you know, it lost like 1.2 million to one round. Is that the most you've ever lost in one day on the golf course? I think so, yeah, by a little bit. So, all right. So at the end of that, like try to help put the into perspective and because you live a gambling lifestyle,

you're betting every day. Are you just devastated to go home after losing 1.2 million? Does that set you back in any way? Or what's that really do to you psychologically? It's certainly not happy, but the first thing I typically would do is go to the range. You go, what the hell? Why can't I get the ball in here? And I would, you know, I would mostly, it's obviously the great thing I love about playing

golf and gambling on it is it's all on you, really. You know, and poker, you can do everything right and still lose. And golf, that's rare's where that's gonna happen So you know, I would just reflect and then ultimately I was lucky enough to run into a guy named Christian Sanchez And we were playing in some TV tournament a poker TV tournament thing and you know he offered to help caddy for me and We started on a trend right I'd say at that point in my golf career I was probably stuck about 3 million total,

just no chance, and then after Christian. So there's like pre-Christian post-Christian, after Christian, we got all that money back with a little bit of Gravy and some very fun matches and some unique opportunities. He really just started from the basics. He's like, here's how you hold the club, here's how you stand. You know, G and posture. I was like, wow, this is amazing. You know, just off that first thing. I was shocked. And of course, as anyone knows, if you've tried to adjust your grip, he had me holding the club where like, I didn't even feel like I was like, I didn't think I could hit the ball at all. And you know, obviously he knew what he was doing. And I didn't. So I listened and trusted. And then when we had matches and things like that, he was able to help me negotiate and say you know he would tell me i'd say christian is a

big and for me and you'd be like no that's going to say with poker players that's like getting into like a preflop like of the negotiations made on the tea are pretty much going to get aside the outcome of the match because you can oh no question and with christian cc's christian is the very analytical thinker very safe for this money is a dad with kids i remember one time we're at shadow creek and there was a ruling ball went in the water and it was red state or something and Christian said no you can drop right here

whatever and the other guy David open-hung thought no no you have to go back behind the water or something like that and David wanted to bet me on this ruling he's like I'll bet you five thousand that I'm right and I said Christian I said Christian how much would you bet on that? It was just like, you are how confident are you? He's like, I bet a thousand. I go, let's make it 20,000. And of course, Christian was right.

So we won that bet. But I remember poor Christian the first time, because we just started working together. And it only been, you know, a week or two. And the very first time we get in a match, me and him. And he hadn't been playing much, and he's a scratch golfer coach all that thing. We hadn't been playing a lot of golf, and the first time we play,

we're in a match for $50,000 a hole. And he's playing for some of it, and he's getting a free roll on it. And I remember the first six, seven holes, he did not look good. He was very, very rusty, and I carried the team, but that was his, he was afraid that we're gonna lose like 300,000, and I'm gonna fire him But that was his, he was afraid that, you know, we're gonna lose like 300,000 and I'm gonna, you know,

fire him. Well, yeah, how's that work? So he's free rolling, meaning like you get his winnings and like you gotta cover his losses as well or is he getting the winnings if you guys would have won? How does that work? So let's say for example, you're playing 50,000 whole. Depending on the deal you make with your caddy

or whatever, like he'd have a free roll. So whatever we win, he gets 5% of, right? Which, you know, it doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually, you know, if you win $100,000, he just makes $5,000. That does sound like a lot. I don't know if you know who you're talking to. It's a good one.

Yeah, well, you know what I mean? I mean, the number 5% doesn't sound like a drop. But when you know that you can win like $200,000, now he's talking about $10,000, which is real money to him. Okay, and so that's the same way for the caddy and for the player that you, like if you and I were to go play, I'm not putting up that kind of cash, but you would say you would cut me like 5% of the winnings.

Yeah, I mean, it depends. Like I've played matches where, you know, the partners would each put up half, but in a case like this, you know, Christian is my is my ringer, my pro, so and he's not, he's not going to be able to afford playing 50,000 whole. So we set up the match and then I give him a little bit of a free roll. So if you in how much golf have you played with Phil Ivy and how often do you guys continue to play? Well, he's back to playing now, so he's been playing pretty much every day, but we used

to play pretty regularly. The thing about Phil, which was very a he's like such an insane gambler When it comes to craps and all these other things like he doesn't negotiate there But on the golf course I remember can't tell you how many times like dole brunson would show up We're supposed to play at 11 a.m. And everyone's there at 11 At about 3 30 we finally go home because they couldn't agree on a match Like they argued for four hours about no I'll give you five and a half no you get five and a half in a tea spot No, no, I got to tee it up from everywhere and blah blah blah and it was just

Constantly, you know, but but Phil had he was just a killer on the golf course Like I got some fellow stories that are next level just an absolute killer. Well, so are you up or down on Phil Ivy in your lifetime playing golf? Well, if you ask him he'll say that I'm up, but I know that that's probably not true I I did go through a run. I'm this is a guy who this is this actually happened So feel Ivy and I we played him with this is at a point where both of our games are pretty even So we played a match even and on the front first six holes. He's he's up three earth. Yeah. Yeah He's up three on me. He's one the first He has up three on six. I win seven eight and nine. So we're dead even after nine. Okay.

Now typically if you gamble and you break even after nine, you don't ask for an adjustment. Okay. He's like, this game's not fair. I can't play this game. This game's not fair. I can't play this game. His caddy, Danny Dotson, who was, you know, a big time player himself. He left. After nine, he's like, nope, we're not playing this one because I started to come around a little bit. So yeah, that's what I had to deal with playing with Phil Ivy. Is there, I mean, how did the bets work? Are you guys just throw out, like, on a whole by whole basis? Like, little, you know, do you throw a ball down on the side, say, 10,000 closest to pin? I mean, imagine it's pretty free-wheeling, is that fair to say? Well, Phil was different. Phil liked to play per hole because with Phil, if he was really good, after 6-7 holes,

he wasn't feeling it, he would just quit. He would try to not make matches where you must play the 18. The matches we typically played for bigger money were Nassau's with automatic presses. So if you're playing a $20,000 Nassau, per side, and then they press the back typically, and then there's presses on the front and presses on the back That was typical and then within the game there was always like fill-ivie one time This is this is unfair to he's playing with a guy named Joe Cassidy and he's about 65 years out And he just had a feeling okay, he's got a way to his hands of course and he's like what do you what can I get on this

What can I get that I make this and Joe's like I, I'll give you 200 to one, right? Which is not nearly the right price. Like, I don't know what Tiger is from there, but I can't imagine he's much better than that with one shot without practice. So, of course, Phil says, all right, I'll bet a thousand. It hits the shot, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, right? And the whole beat the guy with 200,000. Yes. That's the whole way. You know, poor Joe has jaw-dropped. The money was basically all the money that he had. You couldn't breathe after that. Well, it's going to say, do you guys ever get in games with people that might even be better players than you are, but just don't gamble at the same level that you guys do and watch

them get really affected by the prices that they're playing for? Oh, yeah. We've gambled with Scott Pierci back in the day at TPC Summerland, you know, in Scramble matches. And I remember, you know, one year, well, it was two years in a row. Myself, Christian, and a couple other guys who were not very good either. Short guys, but the one thing we all had in common was all four of us could put. And we played against this other three, this group of three, Patrick and Tonya, this was one of them, these big, strong behemoths who all hit at 370. Well, we set up a scramble match.

Them three versus us four. We got a T-spot, but we get four shots to their three. On average, for Birdy, they were probably, you know, 10 to 12 feet, and we were 20 to 25, except they didn't put like we could put, and we got four puts. So I ended up winning like a million plus three back to back years on that match. Like we shot shot one day

They shot 60, you know, which is pretty good. You know when it's scrambled we shot 56. Oh my god So like you know and by that point we were playing like 150,000 a hole because when you're talking about you know You're not gonna win or lose a lot of holes when you're when you're scrambling like that. It's gonna be a lot of birdies Do you have is there an amount of money that you could play for that would be an uncomfortable amount? Of course, yeah. What is it? I don't even know what that number is, but you know, it's been a while since we've gambled that high. Most of the super high stakes gambling on the golf course is kind of dissipated. Why is that? I think well, a lot of people don't have, they lost a lot of

money. If you lose all your money on the golf course, there was a couple guys who were what we would call suckers. And when that dried up, people just didn't really want to play as high. Well, not to keep going back to the well on Phil Ivey, but you said you had stories here. But I want to hear, there was one, I was watching some videos on YouTube scraping what I could find. There was one that you just bet him $100,000 that you would make money on the day, like from

somebody else. You had a side bet with him. that you would make money on the day like from somebody else You had a side bet with him do you remember this? I don't I was something about oh, it's like a two thousand Yeah, oh, yes, I just bet that I would win. Yes, so you made you made like 50k in the match or something like that But then you also won a hundred K from Phil who wasn't even there to bet. Oh, yeah He wasn't even there. There was another bet that I made one night. We were out We were like this, you know, we're having some sake and some beers and we're talking about, and my golf game was not very good. Like the back tees at TPC Summerland is about 7,000 yards. I can't hit a driver more than 230. So I don't hit any of the greens

from the back there, but I bet them give the figure me a year that I could shoot 80 from the back tees there. So I'm drunk and we're all drinking and I bet $550,000 on this. And so I have a month to spare, but I get as many rounds as I need. So with about a month to spare, you know, I go out there and I'm like, all right, 110, 108, 106. Okay, that's my first three rounds. That's what you're starting at. And you go ahead and breathe 80. And I have a month. So we woke up at 7 a.m. every day. I went, we practiced for an hour, played 18, practiced for another hour, played another 18, played nine more, and then practiced again.

So I would go from 7 a.m. to about 8 p.m. every day. And within about a week I was shooting low 90s, maybe a week later, mid to 80s, and with about a week and a half to spare, actually. I was two under after nine. So then all the cards started coming out. Because they were like, oh boy, here he comes. There was probably 60 golf carts on the last three holes, sweating me. And so in the last three holes, I needed to go bogey bogey to win the bet. And there was the three toughest holes also, just the way that it set up. And of course,

you know, on the first one, the first one is the easiest of the three. So I, of course, double bogie that. Now I need to par one of the last two, and I make par on the second, the last one. And then I have a six footer for all the money to win. I'm actually a good putter, but this putt, I hit the putt, and as I hit the putt, my knees sort of kind of fell to the ground in a way, but somehow the ball went in. And I made it. That's enough to get you nervous then. 550K. I think we might have at least

answered the question, at least a little bit on what makes you nervous. What's also too? Just the way that it came down. Yeah. The last two holes, like I hit, basically my strategy was driver three wood, you know, because I couldn't hit the greens, just get close, chip and putt, and I was pretty good at the chipping and putting part. And like the last, and I hit a good drive, good three wouldn't, and all the pressure and everybody around, I just shanked my chip and like hit it way long. So I've got like a basically 60, 70 yard for foot, like two putt, which is brutal. You know, I left six feet past the hole, had to make a comeback or I'm back to back holes to finish. But that was probably the pinnacle of achievement as far as golf. We really worked hard. I'm not no joke.

We spent 12 hours in the course every day. I love you guys make all these bets. They're reckless to begin with and then actually dedicate yourself to it to actually accomplishing it. I got some of the best poker players, who are the best golfers out of the poker players, and who is actually good at, like, from what I gather, watching you guys play poker and stuff like that, you guys shit talk each other pretty well at that level.

Who's the best shit talker on the actual golf course? Well, the best shit talker, and this would surprise people is Phil Ivey. Yeah. He is, like I said said he's ruthless out there. One time this is just an und- this is just like so Phil Ivy like he used to like to get under his opponent's skin and get them off and make them uncomfortable. There was a time where he's on 18 and he's got like a lot of money on this pot against Mike sex and all these people it's like huge for all the matches all the marbles. It's about a 20 footer okay. He asks his caddy he says what

does what does he do? He's like the caddy looks at He says it's a dead straight fill. He's like dead straight. He's like, yeah, it's dead straight He's like, are you sure and the caddy's like, yeah, it's dead straight. I don't want to be that caddy Right. Well, Phil hits the putt and the putt is tracking pretty dead straight But at the last minute like right when it's getting to the hole it fades to the left and It's sort of it hits the lip But then it drops in So he makes the putt. He wins all the money. First thing he looks at his caddy, he looks at his caddy and goes, dead straight huh?

So it's feel you made the putt, he's like, that's not the point. I'm playing for a lot of money out here. He said it was dead straight and he started yelling and screaming at his caddy as he's collecting all the money. The opponents who are just ejected and have to listen to this spoiled brat, yell his caddy, and his caddy's like, what in the world just happened? Like, you made the putt fill. So he, and then I saw him as he walked to his card, he's just grinning, ear to ear.

Just messing with the caddy then? I'm not, messing with the caddy, but doing it in front of everyone else to upset them even more. How's your shit talking game? Well, with Phil, it's pretty good, but, you know. How do you get under his skin? What do you say to him? Well, if none of it is like PG or whatever,

because like, we just go. This is a non-PG podcast, your turn. So this is like, oh my god, like not PC at all. Like we go, we go super, like he, he's like, we just go with stuff that like is not okay in 2019. We go extremely racial. Right? I'm the little wipe guy.

He's like, I, at one time, I was like, man, you should be embarrassed. Blue's in a little white boy like me. You know, like, just stuff like that and we would need each other in that way. Do you guys pay, how do you guys pay out? Do you pay cash? Is it like, does Venmo even work for those numbers?

You just keep it tall. Oh, yeah, how's that work? Well, this, no, nobody Venmo. So like, we don't Venmo those kind of sums. Typically what we do is like, nobody brings that kind of, we don't Vennlow those kind of sums. Typically what we do is like, nobody brings that kind of money to the golf course. So a lot of times when you see people golf and then they go to the poker room later and most people have an account there or chips there. So basically you lose 150,000 and just give them like 150,000 in the Lajyo chips and just

throw them out. Although one time I did get paid at the golf course when I won that million bet and the guy brought like, he just healed me, I beat him for like 700 thousand. He just gave me like 25,000 dollar Balladio chips. I know you mentioned Scott piercey. Are there any other pros in the Vegas Vegas game that you ever played games with? Well, he was the only like official pro that would you know You know, he would practice it somewhere than a lot of time and getting involved in some, you know, scramble's later You know because it doesn't get dark and big as to like eight.

So sometimes he'd be out there practicing and, you know, we'd get him in there. But other than that, no PGA pros. I know that, you know, there's others like John Daly and Joe Pesci and whoever would gamble, but I'd never cross paths with those guys on the course anyway. How does the poker like season work? I mean, there's other times of the year

where you're kind of taking down time from poker and kind of for those that aren't familiar like explain like what has all happened with online poker and all that in that world in the last few years. Yeah, so I do the majority of my play in one scratch in June in the middle of like in a six week period from June to middle of July. I do the whole I do a daily vlog every day on YouTube kind of tracking my results throughout and stuff and make sort of like a TV series out of it. And that's where I spend every day playing and outside of that very little. It's the World Series of Poker, which happens here in Las Vegas. Outside of that, there are events in our tournaments. I will be going to play one later this year in Rosvedov.

As for online poker, depending where you live, there are some legal places now that you can play online poker. Las Vegas is one of them. You can also play in New Jersey, I believe Delaware, Pennsylvania. Legislation is slowly coming around very slowly because politicians just don't really get it. They don't understand why poker is different. But with sports getting legalized across the country, there's a little bit more hope that we'll see online poker more at a sort of a level where

everyone in the country can play. I'm curious to your thoughts. Do you consider poker? And this might sound like a dumb question to those listening at home, but do you consider poker gambling? It can be. For example, if you played poker with me, you'd be gambling. I'd be working.

Correct. Right? So, yeah, I mean, obviously, yes, I wouldn't consider it a form of gambling, but it is one of the forms of one of the few forms of gambling where you can actually get an edge. You can't go into a casino unless you're cheating and play roulette and win. You're going to, I mean, you can win sometimes, but you're not going to win in the long run. Poker and sports betting and, you know, horses and all that.

Those are, that's a, there's a few of the areas where if you're smart enough, blackjack as well, where you can actually win money. Do you like to play other games in the casino other than poker? No, I knew that when I moved to Las Vegas, and I obviously didn't have a lot of money when I first did, it was super important for me to avoid the pitfalls and the traps of the pit, and like winning my money in poker and then losing it all in the pit. So I made a rule where I just wouldn't play it all.

Now that I'm older and I don't have a gambling problem and I've got a little more, if friends come to town they want to play a little blackjack or crap so I will hear in there but it's not that fun for me. For me I look at it like gambling is fun when I can win or at least I have positive equity. When I know I'm just donating money it feels stupid so I don't enjoy it that much. And that's what I feel like I was trying to explain to my parents back in my poker playing days. I'm like, mom, it's not gambling. I know what I'm doing.

I'm actually skilled at it. But there is a difference, I think, in kind of the way, like you have a considerable advantage when you sit down at a poker table because you're playing against other people and not playing against a house. Yeah, the best way you can describe this to your mother next time she asks is, when you play against the casino,

like you play, you're playing against the casino. The casino doesn't lose. When I play poker, I'm playing against other people. The casino is just charging me rent. The casino is just charging me rent to sit in the seat and I get to play against people who are less intelligent at the game than I am. How, what's your home setup look like from a golf perspective?

I've seen some videos and some pictures that you seem to have quite the home setup. I do. I have inside the house, I have a full swing golf which has, you know, I hit, you can hit driver in there, you hit it. Just like you would see it when you go to a golf shop and you know, you're trying out new clubs. I've also got two team monitors, we can dissect the swing. You can also, I don't do this very often, but you can play anything from 50 to 60 different

courses on there, anything from TPC sawgrass to pebble beach or whatever. Then in the backyard, I have a pretty large six hole putting green with a bunker. I mostly use it to chip I don't really put on there very much. You can probably chip maybe 40 yards 30 up to 35 40 yards in the backyard there so that's the golf setup I got you know at the house it seems and then I don't live too far from the golf course anyway. What is it summer that you play at almost entirely? Yeah, pretty exclusively TBC Summerland, occasionally, we'll do it.

I did a tournament, I did that American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe a few years ago. It was a lot of fun. Got to play with a lot of pretty cool people in that one. So what's a day like today? We're recording this on a Monday afternoon. What's a day in the life look like for you? Will you play poker at all today? Is it? But it's, I guess you're outside that window that we just talked about, but how often will

you go sometimes between playing poker? I go really long stretches now. I mean, when I was younger, I played pretty much every day, but you know, now that I've established, I have money. I don't need to. Like right now, I mean, I went to, I go to the gym at noon, done it to a clock, do a podcast with you. You know, I got my TV set up at the house with an 88 inch and 240s on top. So I'll, I'm a big hockey guy, so I'll study that. Maybe I'll go in the backyard, hit a little bit. When it gets a little cooler, maybe around 3, 4 o'clock might hit to the course, play a little bit.

But as far as poker goes, this probably this whole month of August, I won't, I probably won't play it all. I probably won't play again until October actually. So I imagine you get asked about Phil Ivy a lot, but you said you said you you hinted that you got some good stories I don't know if you were hinting at more golf stories that you have on him or what's what's kind of your go-to Phil Ivy story then? Yeah, well, I gave you a few words and my favorite is the one where he you know is on 18 and yellow is caddy but yeah, he's a is he a and yelled at his caddy. But, uh, yeah, he's, uh, is he a good gol, like, what's this game like? So that he's, you know, he's

a guy that's determined, you know, he, he works hard when he works hard. And there was a point where from 100 yards in, he was pretty deadly. Um, he's very technical and mechanical and like, he needs help, like he's always getting help. He's always got somebody helping them and working with him. And I'm the same. Like, I don't hit a golf ball typically without Christian there, because I found that when you're gambling on golf, if you don't have anyone there and your swing falls apart and you've committed to 18 holes, you're dead, and I've experienced that. So with Christian, he can just tell me, he's like, oh, you know what, you know, you need to finish. You're not finishing, you're not finishing the swing, or he's like,

you're coming in flat. I'm like, oh, okay, so I can make the adjustment, because he sees stuff. And so Phil, I have you will do that. But his golf game, I would say, at his peak, at his peak, I would say he was probably around an eight or nine in that neighborhood based on a short game along because his short game is from a hundred yards and he was pretty good. I want to know some more about maybe he's's really random bets you have you've made in your life whether I hear stories about poker players You'll say I'll bet you you know a million dollars. I can lose 20 pounds by the end of next month and stuff like that What's something doesn't have to be golf related something really random that you found yourself betting on at some point

So for me personally it was about the year 2000 I want to say and I was sitting at a poker game with a guy named Ted forest who's you know a prolific player and I want to say and I was sitting at a poker game with a guy named Ted Forest who's you know prolific player and I was about 135 pounds at a time, you know pretty skinny kid and I We were just talking about way pets and all the stuff and I said I'll I'll never weigh 170 pounds in my life There's no way and he's like God bet you that you will and I was like all the He says I said all the 20 I laid him 20 to one that I would never weigh 170 pounds and So he threw me a thousand dollar chip because otherwise it makes no sense He's got to pay up front he threw me a 1000 our chip and I became a vegetarian the next day and then

It'll go I went vegan like a year later So the bet looked pretty locked up but about five what I don't say like six or seven years ago I started to go to the gym Right and I started to add some muscle and I started to put on some bulk and I'm like, uh-oh I see 165 on that scale right now You know and then one day I mean I just kept getting some muscle and a little bit extra You know, you know a little tie around the belly and I've weighed in at one and I you know This is all on honors like he doesn't check my weight every day and I looked and it said 170.9 So yeah the next day I had to give

him his $1,000 back plus 20,000 more. I was as I said there was there a shelf life on that was at any point in your life if you got to 170. Yeah, any point so that's how he does it be people go well how do you ever get paid? He pays up front and then if he ever wins the bet and we're both still alive like you know I would pay him the the rest of it. What do you ever travel and play golf in any other places outside of Vegas and where some of the highlights of some places you've been?

No, really. I've sort of become a master at the TPC, someone in the greens. If anyone needs a caddy, Christian actually believes this. He's not kidding. He thinks that when the pro players come and play that course once a know once a year He's like he thinks I'm a better putter than a most of them on that on those greens just because we know them so well And you know that's a home course. We don't travel too much like I said the the funnest trip I had was edgwood You know, and I remember that year I played I looked at Michael Jordan score from the year before and my goal was just to beat his score And I and I was able to do that. I had a shot like an 82 with 23 puts, 23 puts on the round. But that's played with some cool people Wayne Gretzky, Bill Lambeer, Jason Kid. It's really, really fun for me to be a part of that thing.

Any run-ins with Charles Barkley at all in the golf course? Yes, so my God. It's sad. Isn't it sad? He was playing that day in the Edgewitch and he was right behind us. He gave up so much that he started just swinging the club with one arm. He just used one hand because if you've ever watched, if you haven't seen it, YouTube it, check it out. The Charles Bargley Yip, it's fascinating because apparently before he got this Yip, he was like a ten or ten handicap. You know, now you couldn't possibly break 150. I was gonna say yeah, there's old videos of him playing

with MJ where he swings it free and clear and it's tough, it's really tough to watch. Do you, do you dabble much in sports betting? I do hockey. Yeah, I'm like last year, actually had a losing year last year for the first year ever. It was a weird one. There was a lot of weird stuff that happened, but yeah, I plan to fire it up again this year and mostly betting on underdogs.

I'll just say, are you really analytical when it comes to that? I mean, I imagine there's so much math that goes into poker on calculating odds and what not. I know that's just one element of it, but are you really analytical when you do any other betting outside of the poker table? I would say yes that I am, but I could still be even more so. I still have a little bit of the old school feel, which is really kind of outdated. You shouldn't gamble that way. You should just gamble based on the numbers and stuff like that. I think this season I'm

going to work a little harder on. I do most of my work for the hockey season in August and September and kind of study what I expect the teams to do. And then typically, you know, if there's teams that I think will be underrated, I try to bid on them more so and vice versa. Yeah, I saw you tweeting out some hockey rosters. I was curious as to what the reasoning was behind that. What is, all right, so if you're giving,

let's say like a novice, a true novice, a poker, and then like a somewhat skilled player, what kind of lessons just off the top of your head would you give to a really extremely novice player and somebody that at least has been around a table? Okay, well this is going to sound like a plug because I mean, it is a guess a plug, but it's also true. Masterclass, I can already guess. Yes, yes.

Yeah, well it is. I mean, I did a masterclass, Which is awesome because they do like really incredible work with all kinds of like people that are experts in their field You know Serena Williams teaches tennis Steph Curry teaches basketball us your teachers performance and I teach poker Right, so it's a class that's I think it's like if you get like my course is like 80 90 bucks And then if you get the whole pass you can watch all their all their stuff like well You know you learn cooking from Gordon Ramsey and the list goes on and on but as far as an actual poker tip I can give you it's simply this learn learn the fundamentals which is like you know what hands are good and what hands you shouldn't be playing right so you want to play a lot like you

shouldn't be playing typically more than 30% of the hands dealt like that's pretty loose already you want to like come in there with pretty strong hands and the other thing is for a% of the hands dealt. Like that's pretty loose already. You want to like come in there with pretty strong hands. And the other thing is for a lot of the beginners I would say is like if you like your hand don't just call the bet, raise the bet, be aggressive, take the initiative, be the one that takes the lead. And the third secret little tip that I would give players that are because this is the typical mistake that a lot of like novices make when they play against a pro or somebody good they think oh my God this pro must be bluffing me all the time probably not pros probably just have it so you probably shouldn't just like when they bet a lot of their chips you know on when the one on when it's

all said and done they probably have a really strong hand so you know you can usually fold pretty safely. Well see the worst thing you probably do is watch on television and feel like you know a player's habits because they're showing the highlights on television. And if you're folding 20 straight hands, they're not showing that mixed in. They're going to show you with a real nice blowoff or when you've got the big hands, I would imagine. Yeah, when you watch the edited shows, now poker is sort of evolves. The edited shows still happen, but there's a lot of opportunity now to watch live.

So you can watch them a 30 minute delay and you see all the hints, which gives you a sense of like, wow, you know, when you watch it on TV, like you said, you said, how come they always have good hints? Because they're only showing those. Right. You know, they're not showing the mundane ones where a guy with queen nine raises and everybody folds. Like you're not seeing all the nitty gritty stuff unless you're watching it live. A couple more here and I'll let you get out here. Explain, explain to me why players at your level and poker will arrive late to tournaments. I've always been really curious on that. Well, yeah, it's interesting because that's been a topic of conversation recently in the

poker world on Twitter. And the reason you do it's first, okay, one of the first reasons is you're already in another event. So let's say I played in a event and I'm still in, you know, and I get knocked out and it's like four o'clock and another tournament started at two o'clock. Okay, I'll look at it and see I'll jump in, right? The other one is, you know, and I get knocked out and it's like four o'clock and another turn of the start at two o'clock. Okay, well, look at it and see I'll jump in, right? The other one is, you know, sometimes you look at the early levels and you think, okay, I got other things to do. I want to be well rested for the later stages and I don't think that the early levels

mean that much. So you might, you know, show up later. For me, for example, during the World Series, I'm playing often 12 to 14 hour days. So that's, that's taxing on the mind and the body. So let's say three weeks in, if the tournament starts at three o'clock, I may just decide, just relax a little bit and show up at around seven o'clock. It doesn't give you an advantage because, you know, theoretically, you show up on time, you have a better chance to build chips,

but we're human, and there's only so many hours in a day that you can devote. So a lot of times, guys might be playing another cash game. They're might just playing in a side game that they figure the early levels, they can make more money in that, and show up a little bit later, and still be okay. What's the worst beat you've ever had on a golf course? I imagine it's hopefully it's not worse

than Phil Ivy holding out from the fairway at 65 to one, but what's the worst beat you could think of? You know what's so great, and I'm so proud to say this, that I remember vividly, and this is so backwards in terms of what the human mind usually does. I remember the good moments, more so than the bad. I think my worst day of golf was just the way that Phil Ivey looked at me too, because we're playing at Shadow Creek, and I had no chance, you know, and it was like the fifth or sixth hole and he's just like it was just depressing and demoralizing because this was pre-Christian Right like PC and so once you know like I didn't know what was wrong with my swing and I was just like I couldn't make an eight I mean I could just couldn't make an A and he's just like he's making bogey and double bogey and just beating me every hole And like we had an agreement where,

you know, at that time, we had to play the full 18. So it was just, there was nothing I could do. It was very helpless feeling. I wouldn't call it a beat. It was more just like, I don't know if any other golfers have ever been through, something like that where you're gambling for that kind of money and you cannot quit and you just know

that you're just gonna lose like every hole, another 20,000, another 100, thousand or whatever the case may be. All right last one this doesn't necessarily have to be a golfer-related maybe I don't not sure if he's a golfer at all what's your best favorite Phil Helm you story. My favorite Phil Helm you story oh man geez. Is he play golf? He does. He plays golf and he thinks he's better one-handed so we were playing and it was actually a decently sized match. He doesn't play quite as whole.

It might have been like $5,000 or something like that. And he's on a scramble, and he's playing with these other guys, and he's like, they're on 18 or whatever, and he'd been putting with two hands, like the whole time, and then he decided, he decided that he was a sign, that something had to be, that he should be needed to put this with just one hand

And everyone's like okay Phil what the hell you know, they're like annoyed because he's got partners Right and they're like what are you doing? You know, this is our money on the line as well But you know you're not gonna convince Phil hell me you think it's like a 20 footer and it's hard to even get it there with one hand And somehow Phil home you was randomly just like The bubble one hand knocks it in no problem. Well, I like I do have one final question What if you're of all the professional poker players if you had to pick a teammate for a match today? Who's the partner you would want most one on your team?

Who we poker player for a match? Well, I'm gonna go with Phil I know just because I know the match that'll be in will be good. Because I'll let him do all the negotiating for us. That's awesome. Alright Daniel, thanks so much, man. For the time, this has been a lot of fun, a little different flavor for us. But we've been dying to hear some gambling stories from Vegas as well as some poker ones as well. So thanks for taking the time. Oh, anytime, guys.

Appreciate you having me on. Cheers. See ya. the time. Better than most.