This Year’s World Series Of Poker Is Different

We're going to be talking about changes in the World Series, your ability to know your opponent, and then we're going to have a special guest on whom neither one of us has met, and it's a poker newbie, and we'll be offering some poker lessons.

Vegas experience already. But yeah, the as Sensible well, yeah, the as Sensible origin story of our meeting and the show is poker, and so we're going to lean a little bit into poker. It was also recently out at the Manifest conference in Berkeley, California, downloading with people on AI and effective algorism and other things. Maybe we'll talk

about that next week. One thing I've been looking forward to this year is like it's not an election year, so I can focus a lot more and I want to talk about some changes or we want to talk about some changes to how, yeah, how the World Series actually played. I think it's a very fundamental change that players are downplaying that has profound effects for the strategy. So should I explain or do you want to explain it?

I apologize to all our listeners and our viewers. I'm going to be caffeinating this entire time because I've gotten all of like four hours of sleep. But I have really cute elephants on my on my coffee cups.

has never been possible at the World Series before. I just want to say it's always been possible at Poker Stars. I am a Poker Stars ambassador, but the Poker Stars Live app has been light years ahead. However, at the World Series this has just been introduced.

with a lot of information about people. And I find this quite radical, Like I said, because from the start, I'll speak for myself. Right from the start, I'm thinking in terms of what are the flaws likely to be in this person's game, as opposed to starting out from a default where you're like, Okay, I'm playing some game theory, optimal style relative to like the population, You're like, okay, I know this type.

There are some older players who can play a little bit and just kind of look like generic old guys. Right. If you just played against them, you might fold too much in the first couple of orbits. Typically, older players are less inclined to bluff by stereotype. At least Trapp. You're like, Oh, this guy is like four million dollars in lifetime tournament winnings and he's still cashing regularly and

probably pretty good in things like that. And so you're relying in some sense less on crude stereotypes and more on solid information. It's also an experience where I mean, both Marie, you and I are public figures by like the slander libel definition, right, it removes some ambiguity and awkwardness about like, oh, do you know who I am? Or do I know who you are? Right? As a person who's like slightly socially awkward, I'm like, oh, I

think that's so. For example, the poker player Lexi Gavin, who is a terrific player, but I don't think i've met in person before, right, friends and friends, She's like, oh, your Nate. I'm like, oh you're Lexi, great to meet you. Right, It's nice to have that instead of being like are you when you're in the middle of a poker.

you know, how do you play? Like, well, the beautiful thing about like actually studying and knowing your GTO or game theory optimal way of playing is that you have a baseline, right, you have kind of this baseline that you play like your your solid poker game. And I always say, I always caution people like, don't deviate based on too little information because it's too easy. You know, if someone's raising, like the first ten hands at the table,

you're like, oh my god, this person's a maniac. Well like maybe, but maybe they've just been getting you know, really good card distribution that happens, or if someone has folded, they might not be a knit like there might be other things going on. And so I always say, like, don't over adjust immediately and make sure that you're adjusting

based on solid data because it's so easy. So night you actually bring up one of the you know, one of those there are poker stereotypes, and one of them is that you know, the the nitty old guy who never who never bluffs. And then but those guys, by the way, if you're ever at a table with them, they're then capable of once they'd been card dead and they get frustrated, they will go crazy with eight three offsuit. That's I just picked a random hand. That's not a

good poker hand. But like they're also capable of doing that all of a sudden, like they'll blow up anyway. So one of the stereotypes is like that, there's the older guy. Then you also have like I've made this mistake when you have like the really jacked dudes who look like they're on steroids, you know, the big necks, tattoos. I'm like, well, you're going to be super aggressive, right, That's not always the case, Like sometimes they're actually really

tight players like you. Normally, what our brain does from the psychology standpoint, is it stereotypes based on how people look. Like that's the first thing, that's the first available information that we have. People do it to me all the time because I'm a female, right, Like that's the most striking thing about me, because Nate, as you say, most players are male at the World Series in any given event, it's under ten percent in most events, under five in

some events. You know, it's tiny percentages of females. So you know that's something that really stands out about me. What this does is it actually allows you to use real data and real information as opposed to cognitive biases and cognitive shortcuts, some of which can be meaningful, but most of which are just noise, and yet our brain doesn't process them as noise. We're like, oh, you know, I've met this kind of person all the time. Yeah, but you haven't met this person, right, and they might

just remind you of someone incorrectly. And so when you have the name, if you're not lazy, and by the way, a lot of people are like, oh yeah, if you're not lazy, and you shouldn't be lazy. If you're listening to this, well, actually, excuse me. If you're playing at my table, please go ahead and keep being lazy. If you're not at my table, don't be lazy. Like take the five minutes that it takes to look up these people,

because their lifetime earnings matter how they're doing recently. So if you understand the psychology of this, you know, like, oh, did this person just have a huge score, right, Like they're going to be playing very very differently from someone who's made a lot of money, but their last big score was ten years ago. Right, How has this person been playing this world series? Have they cashed every event or have they had zero cashes? That, by the way's

information you can see in the app. So there's so much valuable information that is actual data. And then Nate, as you were talking, then you can start adjusting, right, because I think that the World Series of Poker is actually somewhere where exploited of poker is much more meaningful than just like being absolutely game theory optimal. And what that means is that you want to start adjusting your strategy.

This is such good advice, by the way, for just life in general, where you should have a baseline way of behaving and acting and negotiating and making decisions, but then when you get into situations where like you're at a table of fish, you're going to adjust. Yeah.

For ninety nine nine percent of the poker playing population, right, I have played more live cash games in the past two years, probably spent as much time doing that as tournaments ranging from low stakes to prett high stakes. And in cash games, the game doesn't happen if you're in some gto optimal world, because no one would play just to pass chips around and give the casino k or

the home game rank or whatever else. So from the start you're in like an exploitive environment where you're looking for people's backstories, you're looking for fiscal read, you're looking for game flow, meaning what's happened recently. People can really overweight right, what happened in the last fifteen minutes, right, whereas like they were like, oh, well that hasn't raised

in an hour, he's been well behaved, you know. And I also think kind of as a person who's now forty seven years old, like I think my comparative strengths are actually in soft skills in poker, you might think that, like Nate's a math guy, right, well, all these people are math nerds, or not all of them, but many of them. Right. You know, I think that I, in a poker context like read people pretty well. I think I'm pretty good at like kind of like how much

should you update? Okay, does a Brazilian play better than a guy from Boston or a guy from Israel or a guy from Japan or whatever else? Right? The stereotype's not worth nothing, Let's be honest, right, if you're trying to play poker, you can't. You have to like take any information you can, but it's worth not very much. And how much are you adjusting to that? How much are you type casting people?

that you fall into a bucket. And it was very funny because there was this one player at my table that you know, I got into kind of several confrontations with and got the better of him, and those confrontations took some of his chips, and then you know, I was kind of I was well behaved for the most part.

It's not like I was going crazy. And then like three orbits later, like I raise and he is in the small blind and he kind of looks around because he's getting a massage, so he's not necessarily like paying attention to everything, and he's like, oh, there's a raise.

He's like, it's Maria again. I was like, I haven't raised for three orbits, Like literally, this is the first hand I've played in like three orbits means like three rounds of blinds, like I've just been completely but in his mind, I'm a maniac right like, and it's Maria again, and he just like his mind just didn't even process

that I actually haven't been raising that many hands. And because he's taking this kind of recent information against himself and just skewing completely the data set that he has, which prompts people to make big mistakes. So this is something that I mean, it happens to the best of us, and it's very like I actually always have to remind myself not to do that, because it's easy, especially when

it's against you, to start taking it personally. Right, if someone has only three bet three times, three bet means raising kind of your your bet. So if someone raises and someone else re raises, that's called a three bet, and that's kind of an aggressive It's a good thing to do. But say there's a player who's only done it three times in an hour, but every single one of those times has been against you.

But like, I really think that, like there is a reason that there are certain players who crush live tournaments and live cash game, which is there's so much fucking information, right, Like, you know, yes, there is. I know I'm becoming kind of like an anti gto guy, I think.

not making decisions in a vacuum. So how do you use data to accurately evaluate the situation in which you find yourself and this is such a great tool for doing that, so don't be lazy, actually use it and then adjust according to.

you wanted to do this and some people did. And today we have a person who you know, we have chosen or our producers have chosen to get some coaching advice for this World Series of Poker, which is really exciting. His name is Tim Sunstock. So he's already spent one weekend at the WSP this year and he'll be returning in a couple of weeks. So Nate, let's see if we can help Tim improve on his performance.

I thought I was probably a lot better than I was, but I you know, I played, We played the house games and things over time. The only tournament I ever really played there was a WSOP event was twenty twelve, I was out in Vegas. It was around fourth of July and I played a daily Deep Stack one of those little, you know, kind of.

a little bit more into this. But can you tell us also a little bit about the cash games that you're used to playing, Like do you play, you know, in a low stakes home game? Like what what's the environment that you'll be coming to the World series from? So those are two questions, but I think they're both important.

made enough money to cover everything. Then I played the six hundred dollars Deep Stack, and I just didn't play well, you know. But yeah, so, But ideally what I would like to do is get some more time in, play some more, read a little bit more. Now go back and read some more, because I think I just completely glazed over stony concess and then go back and I want to try to see if I can make it deeper run in those deep stack tournaments.

better suited to a cash player. So I would actually like as one of my pieces of advice, I would say, potentially look at the schedule a second time, to look not just at the name, and how many chips think A lot of players make the mistake of being like I start with four hundred big lines, that's amazing, right, but within two hours you're going to have fifty big lines, Whereas there's another tournament where you start with two hundred and in two hours you'll have you know, one hundred

and twenty. Right, Like, the blinds move in a very very different structure, and it's actually it actually plays much deeper for much longer and I think that, and Nay, you can correct me if I'm wrong, But I think for cash players, one of your big advantages is kind of knowing how to be patient in those slower structure events as opposed to kind of the more turbo structures where I think tournament specialists really thrive because they know how to actually keep building their stack. You have to

be aggressive in those tournaments. Those are tournaments where being patient, being kind of a little bit tighter is not rewarded because of the way that the structure works, like you have to constantly be fighting against the rising blnes. And so I think those are two considerations that you should think about as you kind of consider what are my strengths. Because one of the things I learned when I was starting is don't try to reinvent the wheel at the

beginning for a tournament series. So even if there are things you want to work on, like if you try to implement twenty new things into your game as you enter a new tournament, it's not going to go well because you haven't practiced, you're not comfortable with it, And so I would say, instead, try to optimize on your strengths. Right, figure out what am I best at as a poker player. I'm a patient cash player, right, and so how what are the tournaments where that's going to be more of an asset.

reason why. So that's a good point. I'll I'm going to look back at the structures and see I'll take a little bit of a deeper dive into some better tournaments for sure.

correctly about one of the tighter players. And when you have a tighter range pre flop, then it's just such an advantage if you know how to press it post slop, you can bet thin for value, you can make bluffs because they miss so many flops when you have a tighter range, right, you can obviously try to extract money when you have very strong hands the nuts in various ways. But yeah, if you are one of the looser players at the table, then that requires a lot of adjustments

post flop. I'm usually not on that side, so I can't speak as much from experience, but I want to say, like one thing that Maria was hinting at, like is like so one thing I literally did before this world series, and I haven't done it in the past, and maybe

I will. But like I made a list of like what I think my comparative strengths and weaknesses as a poker player are relative to the field, and then how that translates in a substantive way in terms of strategy, right, But you're trying to think about, like what are my big overriding objectives here? Right, the kind of mantras that you repeat to yourself, because I find those can be quite powerful. But tim, what do you want to achieve? So why are you playing? Why are you coming back

in July? Why are you out here before? Why are you playing the World Series?

cash games. But just to prove to myself, I could go a little deeper. But I think I got into this situation where, like you're saying, I think your point is really good because what I did was I read a bunch of poker books, some advanced strategy books, reading stuff on solvers, and I just info dumps so hard into my head. I was thinking about so many things, and I've already been thinking I just need to boil it down.

not melt down when it comes down to it. And one of the things you said, you said kind of you felt like the clock was kind of burning, right, that was burning behind you. And that's a really common feeling and I've experienced it too. I think we all have. And if you're feeling like you're kind of making decisions with like this ticking time bomb right like this red countdown behind you, you're not going to be thinking as

clearly and you're going to be making poor choices. And so what I would also say is, yes, you know, obviously like focus on a few things strategy like I'm going to be you know, three betting more, I'm going to be doing this, I'm going to be doing that, but also take some time to like think about the mental game execution, be like, Okay, you know what, I Am just going to constantly like be focused on how many big blindes I have relative to the table, how

my table, my table only is playing, and how I can kind of be a good presence here and I'm not going to worry about the clock and the chip averag and all of these external things that are going on. I'm going to just kind of remain focused on what's going on here at my table. And there's never a need to panic. As soon as you start panicking, that's

when you start making mistakes. And so I think just focusing on that and trying to make sure that you're not the player panicking, but that you're taking advantage of the players panicking will go a long way. Yeah, so that you feel more comfortable.

We can see their names now, and like, you know, but if you're playing as someone who's a little trickier or less known, maybe someone from you know, a different country, different environment and things like that, I mean, then you might want to be a little bit more careful. I still think doing like I still think doing your best tim is going to be better than doing like your C plus impression solver or play unless you've taken more time to studying it right. And then if you are

making a deep run, I mean it's tough. Poker's a tough game, right, probably some degree of tightening up is correct. I mean, if I were you, I'd be like trying to build a big stack and or early try to build a big stack. Be yourself. You can make some feel and read different plays if you want, and targeting

weaker opponents right to build the big stacks. You can maybe be a little bit more tight as you approach the money, which you're supposed to be anyway, right, And maybe you'll even have at the same table some reputation from having been more aggressive and made some plays later on, and because later on in a tournament you want full equity, right, you really want people not to get into coin flips with you when you're trying to make the money and

run deep and stuff. That may be my quick high level diagnosis, I guess, yeah.

to be super aggressive, blah blah blah. And I tried being like super aggressive, and that's not me, right, and it didn't work for me. And my bluffs didn't work either because it was just so counter to my style as a poker player, to my personality. And so something that works for an at Michael Adamo, for instance, someone who wore an Adrian Mateo's like two very aggressive players, isn't going to work for me, right, because that is

just not me. And so once I figured out, okay, I am much more aggressive now than I used to be, but I'm doing it in a way that feels natural to me, right, and that that actually works for me. And I don't take the spots that you know that Adrian Mateos will take, you know, God bless him, let him take those spots, Like I'm not going to try to out Adrian Adrian. And so that's I think. So that's just so important to remember, because you're going to

become a better player. The best players are ones who actually tap into what they're good at.

event is. And I never go above that no matter what, because I have gone above that in the past when I was just starting out, and it's just never a good idea, right when I'm like, oh, I budgeted four, but it's such a good event, so I'm just going to fire a fifth. I always regret it, right, Like that's just it's never it's never good.

And also there's a big filtering effect, right. You know, I've played a medium event twenty five hundred dollars and eight hundred dollars so far, right, And like the tables you get when you sit down are fucking like a wet dream pretty much, right, And by the time you get to the to the bubble, then then those tables get much tougher, right, I mean, there are there is some dead amount of people who are just very very bad at poker, who are almost for sure going to

gonna punt off chips, right, And so registering early, I'm not concerned about rebiverse. Non rebuy people will call down looser if there's a reby available. It's a game texture thing. But playing real poker, like register early from the first level if you want, I like that you're playing shorthanded and pushing people around. I think that's attitudinally doing seriously, even if, like because the average tournament pro is fucking terrified of playing five had it poker right, I would

totally I'd love to do that. And if you overplayed some thoughts, okay, you'll kinter just next time.

all of these overwhelming stimuli. And I think that it's really useful to actually remember what that feels like, because something that I talk about where people are like, what the hell are you talking about? I'm like, poker makes you a much more empathetic person, and people like, what like poker's poker empathy? I was like, no, because you need to learn how to actually take the perspective, really

take the perspective of other people at the table. And so I think it was really cool for me to actually hear Tim's thoughts because there are and this is in no way like this is a good thing, Like, there are lots of Tim's at the table who are you know, who want to take a shot at the World series, who do well in their local cash games, who get there. They're thinking about it differently than you are, Nate, or than I am, And that's just really good to

keep in mind. It's good to remember that there are all of these different you know, all of these different mindsets, and to me, it was really helpful to kind of put myself in Tim's shoes for a little bit and remind myself what it felt like the first time I was out in Las Vegas. But Nate, I'm actually kind of curious because for me it was much more recent, right, Like I definitely remember my first w sopie when was yours?

And do you actually remember kind of your your memories of your first trip and your first World Series of Poker tournament.

I wouldn't even play the no limit events necessarily. It took me a long time before I even like cashed anything.

And so I think one thing that does help is like I can empathize with players who have like some poker experience, but like are a fish out of water at the World Series of Poker and are not quite sure like what they want to accomplish from it, right, So you're like relating to things in the back of your head about the way they put chips in the fire, the little things like, Okay, so after every X number of levels, you have to get rid of the load denomination chips, so blind sco ups, you get rid of

the hundred dollars chips and round them off to five hundreds basically, right, And like, boy, if somebody's really unfamiliar with that process, that's that they probably zero times ever reached that stage of a live tournament before. And you can and having been having not been a you know, I was good at poker, I was not good at live tournament poker, right, And probably a lot of people

are like that. Right. There's some poker environment, maybe's home PLO game where it can be really loose, right or maybe whatever where they can thrive and they're not thriving in this environment. And understanding why they're not thriving and what mistakes they'll make and what vulnerabilities exploit you can make against them, I think is valuable.

kind of a toel box. Then they can yeah, they can get used to it, they get over it, But it is funny to see that transition. Nate, you have definitely transitioned to a live player.

going to head to the Lovely Horseshoe Casina. Let us know what you think of the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you that's coming up right after the credits.