Daniel Negreanu: Poker | Lex Fridman Podcast #324

1. 0:00 – 0:50

   Introduction

   1. DNDaniel Negreanu0:00

      You could be the seventh-best player in the whole world, like literally seventh-best player, but if you're playing with the other six-

   2. LFLex Fridman0:06

      Yeah.

   3. DNDaniel Negreanu0:06

      ... you're the sucker.

   4. LFLex Fridman0:07

      (laughs)

   5. DNDaniel Negreanu0:08

      You are the, you are the, like the worst player in the game, right?

   6. LFLex Fridman0:10

      Yeah.

   7. DNDaniel Negreanu0:10

      So, like, there's a lot of players, for example, like the Dan Bilzerians of the world, right? He's not a top-level player like, you know, these guys you see on TV, but he probably makes more money than they do, because he plays with people that are far below his skill level. So part of the, part of the skill of being a poker player is finding situations where you're profitable, you know, regardless of your skill level.

   8. LFLex Fridman0:34

      The following is a conversation with Daniel Negreanu, one of the greatest poker players of all time. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Daniel Negreanu.

2. 0:50 – 8:47

   Poker hands

   1. LFLex Fridman0:50

      Everything everyone does at the poker table conveys information. So let me ask sort of the big overview question: what are the various sources of information that you project and others project at the table that convey information?

   2. DNDaniel Negreanu1:04

      Well, there's several different things. There's the ones that are conscious and then there's the ones that are subconscious, right? Like on the conscious level, it might be something someone says, right? You know, you ask them a question and they say, "Oh," you know, "you shouldn't call me here. You should." So there's the verbal tells. There's also the more, you know, subconscious stuff: body posture, right, the eyes, the throat, the pulse, um, various things that are, you know, less controllable. I find I use a combination of both to try to gain information. But generally, when I have somebody more comfortable, they give off more. When, like everyone has a different approach. Phil Ivey likes to intimidate. I go the other way. I want my opponents to be relaxed, so that they'll give me more in that regard.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:44

      So Phil Ivey likes to perturb the system, like mess with it to see what comes out?

   4. DNDaniel Negreanu1:50

      I think Phil has an aura about him where he wants you to know-

   5. LFLex Fridman1:54

      Yeah.

   6. DNDaniel Negreanu1:54

      ... that he's watching you. Be afraid. Be uncomfortable. Because when you're uncomfortable, I got you, right? And that's sort of his shtick where he, you know... And people do, like when you sit at a table with Phil Ivey, it's intimidating.

   7. LFLex Fridman2:06

      He likes to rule by fear, and you like to rule by, uh, what is it, love?

   8. DNDaniel Negreanu2:10

      That's a really good way to put it. I never (laughs) had anyone put it like that, but it makes a lot of sense, yeah. You know, fear Phil Ivey, and then-

   9. LFLex Fridman2:15

      Yeah.

   10. DNDaniel Negreanu2:16

       ... with me, it's fine. Don't worry.

   11. LFLex Fridman2:17

       Yeah.

   12. DNDaniel Negreanu2:17

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

   13. LFLex Fridman2:18

       Yeah.

   14. DNDaniel Negreanu2:18

       It's great.

   15. LFLex Fridman2:19

       So that's what the talking at the table is about is get them to be relaxed and get some of that gray area between the conscious and the subconscious to reveal something.

   16. DNDaniel Negreanu2:29

       Yeah. There's that, too, and also just, you know, and this is just part of who I am anyway. Like, I like to talk to people. But one of the byproducts is the more I know about you, the more I likely know about how you think about different situations, right? "So what do you do for a living?" "Oh, I'm a lawyer. I defend criminals." Okay. So this guy probably spends a lot of his time twisting the truth.

   17. LFLex Fridman2:46

       Mm-hmm.

   18. DNDaniel Negreanu2:47

       Trying to find, you know, and then, so then, you know, you already have a mindset of, like, this guy might be more likely to bluff, or he's probably comfortable doing that. Very subtle things like that.

   19. LFLex Fridman2:55

       And you start to, uh, pick up cues, uh, on what nervousness looks like for this person, what the nervousness communicates, all that kind of stuff? So we're talking about physical tells here.

   20. DNDaniel Negreanu3:05

       Yeah. Physical tells is a secondary thing. No, I was more s- specific to, like, player profiling, right, and sort of understanding the type of mind that I'm dealing with, right? Um, so again-

   21. LFLex Fridman3:14

       Got it.

   22. DNDaniel Negreanu3:14

       ... somebody who's a lawyer is, is used to trying... Is, is, is fine with being deceptive as part of a game, right? Whereas maybe somebody's a Sunday school teacher, and you know, they don't feel comf- they, they, maybe they think bluffing might be dishonest, right?

   23. LFLex Fridman3:28

       Mm-hmm.

   24. DNDaniel Negreanu3:28

       So they're less likely to try some shenanigans against you. So, and then the other thing, too, is what type of person is this in terms of their, um, you know, out view, out, like view on life, right? Are they positive? Do they feel like things go their way? Or they're not, right? There's those people that always, "Well, of course I lost. I always lose with this hand." And those types of people, you can manipulate, because when a card comes that you don't, you don't have them beat, right, but you can pretend, 'cause they'll believe it. They're like, "Of course you beat me." So you bet all your chips against them, knowing that you can scare them, because they're, they, they already-

   25. LFLex Fridman4:02

       Hm.

   26. DNDaniel Negreanu4:02

       ... feel like they're gonna lose.

   27. LFLex Fridman4:03

       The inherent, like the cynicism.

   28. DNDaniel Negreanu4:06

       Exactly.

   29. LFLex Fridman4:06

       Cynicism is easier to play against, 'cause you can convince them that their cards suck.

   30. DNDaniel Negreanu4:10

       Yeah, when somebody believes that they're a loser or they're unlucky, right, and that bad things happen to them always and they never catch a break, well, you know, you can just help them make it true. (laughs)
3. 8:47 – 14:17

   Poker ranges

   1. LFLex Fridman8:47

      what are hand ranges, and, uh, how do you begin to estimate the range of hands that your opponents have?

   2. DNDaniel Negreanu8:52

      Yeah. So I actually, speaking of YouTube, I did a video on specifically this.

   3. LFLex Fridman8:55

      Yes.

   4. DNDaniel Negreanu8:55

      Getting familiar with ranges.

   5. LFLex Fridman8:56

      Nice.

   6. DNDaniel Negreanu8:56

      And essentially, you know, back in my day, the old days, we didn't talk about poker that way. We were like, "Ah, I think he's got this," or, "I think he's got that," right? Uh, nobody thought of, like, the range of hands a player can have. So I guess the best example is, imagine like all the potential hands as being a part of a grid, right? So the first player to act, they could have any one of those hands, right? Any one randomly dealt, right? But let's say now that that player raised to $3,000. Okay. Well, you can eliminate now, from this grid, a whole bunch of hands that this player can no longer have. Because if they had a two and a three, they wouldn't do that. So you can say, okay, he probably has a big pair. He has ace-king. You know, you've, you've narrowed the range of hands down, right? Now, through every action, on the flop, on the turn, and on the river, based on the decisions they make, you narrow it down even further. So the range of hands is the whole, uh, the, the entirety of all the possibilities that this player, you believe, could have. And sometimes they fool you, where they have a hand that you don't expect them to have in their range, and you know, maybe a little bit, uh, unorthodox, doing some things you don't expect to throw you off. But a range is essentially all the possibilities, and it narrows as, by the time ... Before the flop, it's endless. Player raises, okay, it's minimized. And now player bets the flop, okay, it's minimized further, and then by the river, you know, you can narrow down the entire range to, you know, just maybe even a few hands.

   7. LFLex Fridman10:15

      Is it always shrinking, or is there sort of, as you get surprised ... I mean, it's always just an estimate, so is, does it ever expand based on sort of chaotic, un- unpredicted, surprising behavior of the players?

   8. DNDaniel Negreanu10:29

      It really should never expand. The range of hands should always get smaller, right? Like again, we start with the, the full, the full scope, and then you should factor in, like, okay, these are all the possible hands he can have on the flop now, right? We can't have new hands on the turn. And if you, if you, if you get to that point where you think, "Oh, well, maybe he has this hand," then you, then you sort of misjudged his range prior, so you're not thinking clearly. It should always shrink from the full scope to, you know, hopefully just a couple.

   9. LFLex Fridman10:55

      Well, in that video, you also talk about, it used to be that you would play your hand, but now you're playing a, a range that, you're representing a range. You're not even just playing your hand. So what does it mean to represent a certain range?

   10. DNDaniel Negreanu11:08

       Yeah, so that's another big thing that's different about poker from, you know, my day to today, is that back in our day, we would like put people on one hand. Like, you probably have king-nine, or you have jacks, or something like that. Now, people are cognizant of the idea that you could have an entire range of hands. So then you ask yourself in situations, "All right, I know what I have, but what I could have, in his mind or my opponent's mind, is any one of these hands. What would I do with the entirety of these hands?" And so a lot of people that are trying to play optimally, you know, game theory optimal, they think in terms of what their range of hands would do rather than their very specific hand.

   11. LFLex Fridman11:43

       So is, is bluffing, in that context, essentially misrepresenting the range of hands that you have?

   12. DNDaniel Negreanu11:49

       No-

   13. LFLex Fridman11:50

       Is that how you think about it?

   14. DNDaniel Negreanu11:51

       Not exactly, 'cause ... So an optimal range, like if I bet the river, if I'm playing game theory optimal, a portion of my range is going to be, I have it, I got, I got the best hand, and a portion of my range is gonna be bluffs, and they'll be balanced. So in theory, no matter what you do-

   15. LFLex Fridman12:05

       Ah, okay.

   16. DNDaniel Negreanu12:05

       No matter what you do-

   17. LFLex Fridman12:06

       It's baked in.

   18. DNDaniel Negreanu12:06

       ... if you call or you fold, in theory, it's just a, you're printing a zero, as we say. You're not, you're not getting, gaining or losing any EV, if you were to do it that way.

   19. LFLex Fridman12:15

       What's EV?

   20. DNDaniel Negreanu12:16

       EV is expected value.Right? So every play that you make, you know, it either is going to, in the long run, you know, make you some money or it's, it's just a losing play. And as a professional, you try to make the fewest amount of minus EV plays you can, and the only reason you would make these minus EV plays is potentially if you were trying to set up your opponent for something later, right? So I might make some minus EV plays, right, so that I can exploit you later, right?

   21. LFLex Fridman12:40

       So you're building up, uh...

   22. DNDaniel Negreanu12:41

       Building up an image.

   23. LFLex Fridman12:42

       ... a player profile that's false in some way.

   24. DNDaniel Negreanu12:45

       Something that I'm gonna, I'm gonna plant seeds in your mind, so that then I can exploit them later. So for example, why would players, like, show a big bluff?

   25. LFLex Fridman12:52

       Yeah.

   26. DNDaniel Negreanu12:53

       Like, what would be the reason for that? They show a big bluff, so that you know they're capable of it, but maybe in their mind, they're never gonna do that again. But now they think, "Ugh, you know, he bluffed me last time. Maybe he's doing it again." But that's a, what we call, like a level- a leveling war. Because it, you know, you can go back and forth with whether or not, "Okay, this guy might know that. Like he showed a bluff because he's never gonna bluff me again." So that, that's where it gets a little...

   27. LFLex Fridman13:15

       So th- that's a little bit different, though, when we're talking about hand ranges, that's different than building up a mental model of what your opponents, what your opponents think of you, and what your opponents think that you think of them, and, and so on so forth. Are you trying to construct those kinds of mental models? And is that separate from the hand ranges?

   28. DNDaniel Negreanu13:37

       They go hand-in-hand, right? So if in a given, in a given situation, right, my range has this many value hands and this many bluffs, okay? So in theory if I wanna be balanced, you know, this is my range and this is what it looks like. I'll bet this 50% of the time, bet this 50% of the time. However, if I know that you think that I bluff too much, right, then I'm not gonna bluff as much. I'm gonna start, instead of betting these hands that I would 50/50, now what I'll do is, I'll do like 70/30, where I'm basically value betting most of the time against you. You know, or vice versa. If I know you always fold because you think I have it, I'm gonna veer the other way, and instead of bluffing 50%, I'll bluff 70, 80% of the time, to take advantage of your perception of me.

   29. LFLex Fridman14:00

       So to be successful, do you have to construct a solid model of all the players in the game? Or can you ignore them?

   30. DNDaniel Negreanu14:00

       I think it's really important. Like, when I play I have, in my phone, I have a player profile of everyone that I play with. Whenever I pick up, whether it's physical tells or tendencies they like to, you know, th- that, that, that they have. Um, however, if I know that you think that I bluff too much, right, then I'm not gonna bluff as much. I'm gonna start, instead of betting these hands that I would, 50/50, now what I'll do is, I'll do like 70/30, where I'm basically value betting most of the time against you. You know, or vice versa. If I know you always fold because you think I have it, I'm gonna veer the other way. And instead of bluffing 50%, I'll bluff 70, 80% of the time, to take advantage of your perception of me.
4. 14:17 – 30:32

   Game theory optimal

   1. DNDaniel Negreanu14:17

      of me.

   2. LFLex Fridman14:17

      So, to be successful, do you have to construct a solid model of all the players in the game? Or can you ignore them?

   3. DNDaniel Negreanu14:26

      I think it's really important. Like, when I play I have, in my phone, I have a player profile of everyone that I play with. Whenever I pick up, whether it's physical tells or tendencies they like to, you know, th- that, that, that they have. Um, however, if I know you always fold because you think I have it, I'm gonna veer the other way. And instead of bluffing 50%, I'll bluff 70, 80% of the time, to take advantage of them. So I won't be through. But now all of a sudden when I do that, I'm no longer playing optimal. Because if you knew that I was making that adjustment, now you can exploit me.

   4. LFLex Fridman15:47

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DNDaniel Negreanu15:48

      So that's where the sort of what we call the leveling war happens, where people veer from, you know, the optimal line of, okay, 33% each for each one, you can't beat that, but you also can't win with that either.

   6. LFLex Fridman16:00

      So you're always trying to be at the, at the cutting, at the leading edge of suboptimal play. (laughs)

   7. DNDaniel Negreanu16:06

      You're, yeah, you're going back and forth. And listen, at the highest levels, like online, that these guys play, like they're trying to play pretty close to, like game theory optimal. Because it's very difficult to do, first of all. No human being will ever be able to compute at the level that computers can. It's just never going to happen. So that's where, like, the human mind has to come into play and say, "All right, well, you know, if I was playing against a robot, I would do X, but I'm not. I'm playing against you, so I have to adjust."

   8. LFLex Fridman16:32

      So does game theory optimal only look at the, the betting and the hands in the current hand? Or does it look at the history? So if, if you were to play optimally optimally, would you need to look at the history of the individual players? Or just every hand is taken afresh?

   9. DNDaniel Negreanu16:49

      See, that's why I love playing exploitatively for the most part, because with GTO, anything that's happened in the past has no bearing on this situation.

   10. LFLex Fridman16:58

       Yeah.

   11. DNDaniel Negreanu16:58

       It's simply based on what is the optimal play, in a vacuum, in this spot. Whereas exploitatively, "Okay, this guy bluffs way too much in these spots, so now I can make an adjustment and call more." You know, based on past information. GTO doesn't take into account history at all.

   12. LFLex Fridman17:14

       So, like in a tournament, how quickly can you construct a player profile that you've never played before?

   13. DNDaniel Negreanu17:19

       Depends on the level of the buy-in really, right? So the higher the buy-in, generally speaking, you can assume if they're professionals, that they're gonna have pretty similar profiles, because, you know, everyone's playing ... You know, if you're playing this game well, it looks similar, right? At the lower levels, you know, playing, say, in a $1,000 or $1,500 buy-in or less, you know, within a half an hour or an hour, I have an idea of, all right, just by seeing how some, uh, players played a few hands, that ... You know, so here's the thing with poker is like, I can see one clue of what he did-

   14. LFLex Fridman17:49

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DNDaniel Negreanu17:50

       ... and it tells me so much about what he'll do in a vast number of scenarios.

   16. LFLex Fridman17:53

       And you're saying at the high level, people don't give too many clues. I mean th-

   17. DNDaniel Negreanu17:57

       Well, at the highest level, is, people are so much more similar, in terms of their style of play.

   18. LFLex Fridman18:02

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

   19. DNDaniel Negreanu18:04

       Well, and now with all that we've seen on TV, right, like people get to watch streams and whatever, so you get to watch all the top players play. So if you wanna learn how to play better, guess what you do? You copy what they're doing, essentially. Like, "Oh, he's only raising this much. I'm gonna do the same. They're betting this much. I'm gonna do the same." So as a result, what you end up having is sort of a-... you know, every- everyone deciding. Like, I guess, it's similar in chess with openings, right? People figure out, "Okay, this is an opening, this is what you do." And that's it. You know? And then everyone's similar to that. And then you have, of course, the outliers who try to do things a little differently and confuse people.

   20. LFLex Fridman18:38

       Uh, it seems like the outliers, like we, we talked offline, that Magnus, in order to win, Magnus Carlsen, has to play suboptimally in the openings to, to take it... take his opponents out of the comfort zone so he can, he can play what he calls pure chess as quickly as possible, which is just both short and deep calculations, purely you're looking at the board versus memorized openings and memorized lines. Is it the case that the best poker players are the ones that are able to, at the right time, play really suboptimally or really, um-

   21. DNDaniel Negreanu19:14

       Unorthodox.

   22. LFLex Fridman19:14

       ... unorthodox?

   23. DNDaniel Negreanu19:15

       Yeah. Specifically, there's one guy who last year sort of took the poker world by storm and his name is Michael Adamo. And he was doing things, like I said, you know, most of the top pros play very similarly with the way that they, you know, construct ranges and their bet sizing and all these kind of things. He was doing some crazy things that nobody else was doing. So he studied, you know, sort of a different form of poker and it, it was unorthodox, and it, you know, it throws people off, 'cause he's in his comfort zone with these bet sizes and different things, whereas everyone else, they're, they're not well studied in those spots. So as a result of him being unorthodox, he became like a monster and very difficult to play against 'cause he really knew what he was doing with it.

   24. LFLex Fridman19:53

       In tournament or cash games or both?

   25. DNDaniel Negreanu19:54

       It was tournaments. Yeah. He was crushing tournaments. He was going against the norm in terms of what is like, you know, this is what you should do as a poker player in this spot. He wasn't doing that. He was doing what he thought was best and he was doing things outside the norm that, again, in a vacuum, you could look at that and you go, "That's incorrect."

   26. LFLex Fridman20:10

       Yeah.

   27. DNDaniel Negreanu20:11

       "That he should not do. That is a clear-cut mistake." Even, you know, th- the solvers or the computers or game theory would say, "This is wrong, what he's doing," but it's not wrong if he's doing it in a way that he's exploiting other players' tendencies. So for example, with him, say he's playing far too aggressively. Okay? That's not good, unless your opponents are playing way too passively. So if your opponents are playing passively, the answer is to be more aggressive with them. And that's, I think one of the, you know, biggest advantages he had was he was willing to do that.

   28. LFLex Fridman20:40

       So bet big-

   29. DNDaniel Negreanu20:43

       Huge.

   30. LFLex Fridman20:43

       ... big, big pots bluffing?
5. 30:32 – 37:04

   Winning

   1. LFLex Fridman30:32

      you know, I mean, there's, there's a cold absurdity to the fact that you can play op-, you can play extremely well and still lose. I mean, the... Actually, this year-You've, you've played the, what i- what is it? 50 days of World Series of Poker, and it seems like, at least from the perspective of me looking at it through the internet, it seems like there's a lot of hands that you were like 70/30, 80/20, uh, all in hands that you just did no- were not going your way. That can, sort of, break you mentally.

   2. DNDaniel Negreanu31:04

      Absolutely. Yeah, one of the hardest things, especially about playing... 'cause cash games and p- tournaments are different. One of the most difficult things about, you know, being a tournament player is resilience. Because more often than not, like so if there's a tournament with 1,000 people, to win the tournament, you have to get all of the chips. That means there's one winner and 999 losers. So it's, you know, it is very rare that you actually like win all the chips. So you're essentially, at some point in every tournament you play, gonna deal with like really bad luck and disappointment, and sometimes those streaks can have you question yourself-

   3. LFLex Fridman31:34

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DNDaniel Negreanu31:34

      ... and be introspective about, "Okay, so I think," I'm 47 now, "I think I've gotten better as time went on between distinguishing, okay, am I losing right now because of bad luck or is it fundamentally decisions I'm making are not very good?" Right? And that's one of the hardest things for anyone who plays poker to, to get to, right? "Why am I losing? Am I losing because of my opponents being better, I'm not playing well, or am I losing just because of luck?" And because there's so much variance in poker, a lot of players can be confused wha- on both sides of the coin. One guy's winning and he thinks he's great and he's really not. Wait till the cards break even, as we say, you know?

   5. LFLex Fridman32:11

      I think there's a lot of parallels to life as well. You don't... If you get screwed over, over and over, it's hard to know if you're doing something wrong or if it's just bad luck.

   6. DNDaniel Negreanu32:19

      Yeah. I think they did a study. I remember there was like a study, it was supposedly related to gambling, but it was mice and they put 'em in a little maze and they'd go down these three tubes and they'd go down this one tube and there'd be cheese, right? And then they'd go down again, cheese. Three times in a row, there was cheese there, right? The next time, there was an electric shock there, not cheese. The rat went, you know, he, the- the mouse went to the, to get zapped. He got zapped, okay? Came back. He kept going back to get zapped until he died. Like, he kept going because he found cheese there. He has won there.

   7. LFLex Fridman32:52

      (laughs)

   8. DNDaniel Negreanu32:52

      So he continued to go chase that win, despite it being, you know, now all of a sudden not worthwhile till, uh, till he died. And, and, uh, essentially what they said was, that is essentially how they, uh, compared it to like, you know, the gambling brain and how people think about gambling.

   9. LFLex Fridman33:06

      You're chasing the wins. You learn too much. You sort of over-generalize the lessons learned from the times you've won.

   10. DNDaniel Negreanu33:13

       So, yeah, like beginner's luck can be detrimental. If you, if you have some early luck and you believe that this is just the way it's supposed to be forever, you know, it can put you in a delusional state where, you know, you, you, you feel like "I'm, I'm just great." But no, you're not. You were just lucky in the beginning.

   11. LFLex Fridman33:28

       I actually played poker once in Vegas. It was a, um, it wasn't a tournament, but it was a kind of tournament-like s- s- style. I already forgot what it was. But, uh, what I do remember is I had four of a kind. So the last hand I've ever played in poker was I got a four of a kind and there was, uh, a couple of others with really strong hands so everybody went all in, and I think you get some kind of bonus for getting four of a kind?

   12. DNDaniel Negreanu33:55

       Bad beat jackpot, you were playing in.

   13. LFLex Fridman33:56

       Yeah. So something like this, uh, I apologize if I don't know the details, but I just remember winning a lot of money and I walked away from the table. I said, "I'm not playing poker again. This is great. I'm gonna

   14. NANarrator34:05

       (laughs)

   15. LFLex Fridman34:06

       ... up top." Because I started to feel like th- this is you're... I started to think, even though I haven't really played poker at all, that I'm, I'm good. And that was a really dangerous feeling, and everybody was really mad for walking away from the table.

   16. DNDaniel Negreanu34:18

       One of the other things that I think is interesting about poker too is good is relative, right?

   17. LFLex Fridman34:21

       Yeah.

   18. DNDaniel Negreanu34:22

       So you could be the seventh best player in the whole world, like literally seventh best player. But if you're playing with the other six-

   19. LFLex Fridman34:29

       Yeah.

   20. DNDaniel Negreanu34:29

       ... you're the sucker.

   21. LFLex Fridman34:30

       (laughs)

   22. DNDaniel Negreanu34:31

       You are, you are the like the worst player in the game, right?

   23. LFLex Fridman34:33

       Yeah.

   24. DNDaniel Negreanu34:33

       So like, there's a lot of players, for example, like the Dan Bilzerians of the world, right? He's not a top level player like, you know, these guys you see on TV, but he probably makes more money than they do because he plays with people that are far below his skill level. So part of the, part of the skill of being a poker player is finding situations where you're profitable, you know, regardless of your skill level.

   25. LFLex Fridman34:55

       Another, uh, connection to life. Uh, do you think Dan Bilzerian is telling the truth about having made, what is it, 50, 100 million dollars? Just a huge amount of money playing poker?

   26. DNDaniel Negreanu35:06

       Considering what I know about the private games and the types of players who play in these private games and the stakes that they play, I absolutely believe, you know, Dan has made, I don't know how many millions, but I... You know, whether it's 50, whatever, but it wouldn't surprise me that if you play in these games within a year or y- you know, you find the right businessman who has way too much Bitcoin money, you know? And you, you know, in one night you take him for 20 million, I absolutely could see it. I don't see any reason why. Listen, where he got his money initially, you know, that's up to-

   27. LFLex Fridman35:33

       Yeah.

   28. DNDaniel Negreanu35:33

       ... interpretation from his father or whatever. But wh- but has he made a bunch of money playing poker? Absolutely. No question.

   29. LFLex Fridman35:40

       Did... Do you feel like, as somebody who loves the game, do you think there's something almost ethically wrong in playing people much worse than you?

   30. DNDaniel Negreanu35:48

       So, yeah, that's a good question because, you know, part of the reason I played poker and wanted to become professional was like, I want to be... make my mother proud, right? And I don't think she would be proud of me taking like Grandma Betty's like last five dollars, you know, and going down the street, you know, sending her broke and taking her pension check. So I play at the high stakes against people who can afford it. They know who I am. I'm not a hustler. I'm not pretending I'm bad at poker to squeeze in. Like, I was thinking about this just yesterday 'cause I played in a game, that if I played that sort of role where a lot of guys do, pros that sort of play down their skill level, pretend they're just one of the guys, these guys can make 20, $30 million in a year, legitimately. Like, I believe that like if I did that, if I said, "You know what? I'm gonna go down that path, get into these games in LA, you know, and travel and do all this kind of stuff," I could make 20 million a year. But it feels a little greasy, right? I don't like to kiss anyone's ass. I don't like to ask it for a- anyone for a favor or things like that. So, but, but yeah, like-I, I feel ... Listen, a rich guy who wants to sit down with a million bucks and get drunk and lose it, I have no empathy for that. I'm like, I don't have any moral qualms with that, whatsoever.
6. 37:04 – 43:05

   Losing

   1. LFLex Fridman37:04

      Um, well, let me ask you about a tough, uh, period of your recent life. You had a rough, like we mentioned, the World Series of Poker, um, losing 1.1 million dollars over 48 days. What were you going through mentally during that?

   2. DNDaniel Negreanu37:18

      So here's the thing, you know, I do, like you said, I do a YouTube vlog every day.

   3. LFLex Fridman37:21

      Yes.

   4. DNDaniel Negreanu37:21

      So I kind of share my thoughts, and listen, I can edit that thing and keep out the bad stuff. But I think it's more authentic and genuine to show people the actual struggles and the pain that I go through, you know, without it. And I'd say, the one thing I'm most proud of throughout the entire thing is the resilience, because there are moments you see me where I'm broken. I'm just like, I can't take it. I broke a selfie stick this year.

   5. LFLex Fridman37:41

      Mm-hmm.

   6. DNDaniel Negreanu37:41

      Like, I was filming it, 'cause you know, I do for my vlog. I smashed the stick, threw it in the corner, right?

   7. LFLex Fridman37:46

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DNDaniel Negreanu37:46

      Just, that was my, like, hit rock bottom moment. And then I put the camera on me, and I was like, "All right. I let people see it." But mentally, it was very difficult, because there was a feeling of hopelessness, where you can ... I was making good decisions. Like, I re- genuinely felt like I'm playing really, really well. But every time my money went in and my opponent's money went in, and say I was 60%, 70%, 80%, for about a two-week stretch, I lost every one of those. And you start to wonder. You're like, (laughs) "Man, I, I can't win if I never win-"

   9. LFLex Fridman38:15

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DNDaniel Negreanu38:15

       ... you know, in these spots." So it was difficult. Luckily, I have, you know, 20 odd years of experience in how to deal with it. And so, as I said, I wake up the next day ready to go, you know?

   11. LFLex Fridman38:26

       So, as if nothing happened.

   12. DNDaniel Negreanu38:28

       To a certain degree. Obviously, you know, th- the more, the more it happens and the higher buy-ins, like the one where I broke the selfie stick, I lost 500,000 in that tournament, right?

   13. LFLex Fridman38:36

       Yeah.

   14. DNDaniel Negreanu38:37

       And it was like the last card. It was painful.

   15. LFLex Fridman38:39

       I think you lost.

   16. DNDaniel Negreanu38:40

       Yeah, that was great- (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman38:41

       Tell us that-

   18. DNDaniel Negreanu38:41

       ... that video. (laughs) "I think he lost." Good, good read.

   19. LFLex Fridman38:44

       Uh, what led up to the, uh, selfie stick gate? Like, what ... You just lost your shit for a, like, 100 milliseconds.

   20. DNDaniel Negreanu38:53

       Yeah.

   21. LFLex Fridman38:53

       Like, it was very brief. You're just like, what? The world wasn't making any sense? Like, how am I ... do I keep losing, kind of thing? How did you ... Why did you lose your shit?

   22. DNDaniel Negreanu39:02

       You should never really think like this, but part of me felt like I deserved to win this hand.

   23. LFLex Fridman39:05

       Yes.

   24. DNDaniel Negreanu39:06

       Right? So part of me was like, "Listen, I've lost so many in the last two weeks, all right? Let, you know, the poker gods be kind to me right now and let me win this." And it looked good.

   25. LFLex Fridman39:14

       Yeah.

   26. DNDaniel Negreanu39:14

       I was in a great situation on the flop, great situation on the turn. I'm about to be a competitor. I'm ab- gonna be a contender in this tournament to win a big prize pool and turn the whole thing around. It's all there for the taking. And then, boom, the last card, it just, you know ... It was couple weeks of frustration-

   27. LFLex Fridman39:31

       Yeah.

   28. DNDaniel Negreanu39:31

       ... in the moment of filming, that I just had, you know, sort of a visceral reaction, you know, and I smacked the, smacked the selfie stick. And then, like, I, it was ... I see a corner, it's safe.

   29. LFLex Fridman39:40

       Yeah.

   30. DNDaniel Negreanu39:40

       I threw the selfie stick on the ground. And of course, social media blows up about how, you know, I, I, it was a violent act.
7. 43:05 – 47:24

   Mental game

   1. DNDaniel Negreanu43:06

   2. LFLex Fridman43:06

      So, you did a podcast on the mental game a few years ago, but then, that's just something you really care about. So what aspects of the mental game in poker is most difficult to master?

   3. DNDaniel Negreanu43:15

      I think the most difficult thing for people is self-awareness, right? And, and resilience. Self-awareness to know, okay, so, you know, again, is it, am I, am I not doing as well as I could be because of luck? Or is there things that I can learn? And I always look to mistakes as opportunities. I really do. When I make a mistake in a poker hand, right? Call it a breakdown or whatever. That's where breakthroughs happen, where I'm like, "Oh, you know, what I could have done here? I could have done this and that would've been really good and I'm gonna do that going forward." So I think like with anything, um, you know, when you start out playing golf, like your goal is to just hit the ball, right? Then you try to hit it in the air, then you're trying to hit it straight, then you're hi- trying to hit it on the green, then you're trying to hit it closer to the green to the point where the pros get where, you know, they're so finite, they're trying to hit it 63 yards and spin it back three yards. They're im- it's imperfect. Like, they don't hit the perfect shot because the perfect shot for them is it goes in, but they try and make the mistakes smaller and smaller and smaller. Poker's the same. We all make mistakes consistently. The goal is to minimize, especially the big ones.

   4. LFLex Fridman44:23

      What was the, uh, lowest point for you psychologically? In poker in general, actually. Maybe it was this year, maybe it was in general. Do you remember if there was times in your life, speaking of resilience, that were extremely difficult to you mentally?

   5. DNDaniel Negreanu44:37

      Yeah, so early on, you know, uh, as basically as, you know, as a teenager I was playing Toronto and then in my early 20s I'm like, "I'm going to Vegas," right?

   6. LFLex Fridman44:44

      Mm-hmm.

   7. DNDaniel Negreanu44:44

      And I thought I was the best. I'm like 21 years old.

   8. LFLex Fridman44:47

      You did so the confidence was there.

   9. DNDaniel Negreanu44:47

      I'm like, "Check me out," right?

   10. LFLex Fridman44:49

       Yeah.

   11. DNDaniel Negreanu44:49

       Show up with $3,000, 24 hours later, you know, money's gone. And I remember, I remember the moment j- vividly. It was at the Binion's Horseshoe. It was about 3:00 in the morning. I was playing with seven other people. You know, I lost my last chips. I went to the bathroom, washed up, got out, they all left.

   12. LFLex Fridman45:09

       Mm-hmm.

   13. DNDaniel Negreanu45:09

       And it was like a moment where I realized like, okay, in Toronto I was the big fish, but here they were playing 'cause of me. I was the sucker. I remembered every one of their faces. And then I remember not having enough money to get back to budget suites where I was staying.

   14. LFLex Fridman45:21

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DNDaniel Negreanu45:22

       So I walked. I didn't, you know, I walked, and in that moment I was thinking about like, is this something that I'll be able to do? Am I good enough?

   16. LFLex Fridman45:28

       Mm-hmm.

   17. DNDaniel Negreanu45:29

       You know, what am I gonna do now? I'm in Vegas, I don't know anybody and I have no money, right? So that was certainly like what felt like a low point, walking back behind Paradise and Twain, which is not a great part of town. (laughs)

   18. LFLex Fridman45:42

       Uh, where did you find the, the strength to answer yes to that question, that you can, you can still do good?

   19. DNDaniel Negreanu45:49

       I think this has been sort of a pattern in my life where like in the evening after it happens, like I don't have it, you know, I don't have that feeling of hope or, you know, resilience if you will. I'm, I'm allowing myself to experience despair, which is exactly where I'm at. But then a good night's sleep, wake up the next morning and s- just within me, I have that inner confidence to say, "You know what? Fuck it. Get back on the hobby horse. Find a way, make it work." Right? And I, but I do believe it's really therapeutic and worthwhile to allow yourself to feel and vent.

   20. LFLex Fridman46:21

       Yeah.

   21. DNDaniel Negreanu46:21

       So many people today, the Instagram culture world I call it, is like, they wanna act like they're perfect. Nothing bothers them. Bullshit, right? You're pissed off. It's okay to show it.

   22. LFLex Fridman46:30

       Mm-hmm.

   23. DNDaniel Negreanu46:30

       Emotion's fine. We all have it. There's no reason you have to suppress it. Obviously, you don't want to have guys throwing selfie sticks around the room every time they lose a pot, right? (laughs)

   24. LFLex Fridman46:38

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   25. DNDaniel Negreanu46:39

       But, but, you know, a little bit-

   26. LFLex Fridman46:40

       You're gonna make everybody feel unsafe-

   27. DNDaniel Negreanu46:42

       Yeah, exactly. (laughs)

   28. LFLex Fridman46:43

       ... if that happens.

   29. DNDaniel Negreanu46:44

       Yeah.

   30. LFLex Fridman46:44

       And so you're saying, um, there is a culture of saying, you know, stay positive, all this kind of stuff, but you know, when you feel despair, don't resist it. Ride it out.
8. 47:24 – 56:28

   Day in the life

   1. LFLex Fridman47:24

      So through 2022, and in general, what does a perfect day in the life of Daniel Negreanu look like when you're... like on a day when you have to play a big game, big tournament game and so on? So like what, what time do you wake up?

   2. DNDaniel Negreanu47:39

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman47:39

      What do you eat for breakfast?

   4. DNDaniel Negreanu47:41

      So my life is twofold. Like one when I'm playing hardcore and one when I'm not. And they look very different, right? So I'll give you a quick glimpse of like when I'm not.

   5. LFLex Fridman47:51

      Mm-hmm.

   6. DNDaniel Negreanu47:52

      Up at 10:00, you know, breakfast, in the gym at noon, you know, uh, post-workout, uh, meal, coffee, uh, walk, like, you know, I try to get... that's what I do for cardio, you know, and just very like homebodied.

   7. LFLex Fridman48:07

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DNDaniel Negreanu48:07

      I don't leave the house. It's very (laughs) like boring and mundane, right?

   9. LFLex Fridman48:10

      Long distance walk? So like what do you do when you're walking? You're thinking about stuff or-

   10. DNDaniel Negreanu48:14

       Well, no, honestly, I just walk on the treadmill. I try to get 15,000 steps a day and I just walk for basically like an hour while I watch a show or I'm on the computer or something like that, you know, I'm on the treadmill.

   11. LFLex Fridman48:23

       Why walking, not running? Yeah.

   12. DNDaniel Negreanu48:25

       Well, I mean, I think walking... I mean, I, I do a little bit of running, but hardly any.

   13. LFLex Fridman48:29

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DNDaniel Negreanu48:29

       I don't enjoy it.

   15. LFLex Fridman48:30

       (laughs)

   16. DNDaniel Negreanu48:30

       (laughs) Like, I just like walking and frankly for fat loss when it's usually what I'm doing after big poker tournaments-

   17. LFLex Fridman48:36

       Mm-hmm.

   18. DNDaniel Negreanu48:36

       ... is getting back in shape-

   19. LFLex Fridman48:37

       Mm-hmm.

   20. DNDaniel Negreanu48:37

       ... that walking's ideal for it, right?

   21. LFLex Fridman48:40

       Yeah.

   22. DNDaniel Negreanu48:40

       So the- so essentially it's like the tale of two worlds. During the World Series of Poker, all my sort of structured life, thrown out the window.

   23. LFLex Fridman48:47

       There's no walking.

   24. DNDaniel Negreanu48:48

       There's very little walking, there's very little working out, there's very little anything. I go into the World Series, you know, like this year I went in around...... 157.

   25. LFLex Fridman48:57

       Mm-hmm.

   26. DNDaniel Negreanu48:57

       And I expected to gain about 10 pounds during the World Series. Not good pounds.

   27. LFLex Fridman49:00

       Mm-hmm.

   28. DNDaniel Negreanu49:01

       Wasn't muscle.

   29. LFLex Fridman49:01

       Mm-hmm.

   30. DNDaniel Negreanu49:01

       But that's about what I did, 165. And then I spend the next month trying to, you know, lose it. But during the World Series when I'm playing, the most important thing, without question, that I have to focus on, and this is why I stopped focusing on working out and all that stuff, is sleep.
9. 56:28 – 1:00:17

   History of poker

   1. LFLex Fridman56:28

      the game has changed so much. Uh, the, the, the, the greats of the past surely cannot be the greats of the present. Those, that, that, that kind of commentary will continue for every sport, and certainly for poker, 'cause poker really changed a lot over the past couple decade. Can, can you speak to how much it has changed?

   2. DNDaniel Negreanu56:45

      Yeah, I think-

   3. LFLex Fridman56:46

      Because it's been at the top for so long.

   4. DNDaniel Negreanu56:47

      Yeah. So complacency is a big issue for, for people who make it, if you will, right? So in my era of the poker boom, around the early 2000s, there was a group of players who were the big names, the stars of the game. Well, a lot of them had their egos out, out of whack, where they just felt like, "Okay, I'm the best. That's it." Like, no, there's young guys learning. There's new software. There's solvers. There's all these kind of things, and if you're not keeping up, then you'll get surpassed. And I remember myself at a very early age saying, "I never wanna be that guy." And it was one of my first events in the late '90s. I was the young buck playing with the Tom McAvoy's and Brad Doughty, the guys of the era, right? And I was doing things more aggressively, and they were scoffing at, "Oh, these young kids with their aggressive 3..." and all this stuff, and they were sort of mocking it, you know? And I thought, "Never be that guy." Always have the humility to intro- be introspective, and always have the respect for your opponents that while, while you think you've got it all figured out, they're learning new things, and you can learn from them. So I've always been willing to sort of swallow my pride and get coached by younger players, who I might even be better than, but they see blind spots that, that I have that I might not. And they, you know, they help me improve my game. I've always been willing to sort of look every six months or a year and say, "Is what I'm doing working? And if not, how do I make... how do I get better?" But most people from my generation, they, they go the other way. I don't know. They just have this idea that they figured it all out. Once you feel like you've mastered it, there's nothing left to learn, that's the moment where everyone else starts to surpass you.

   5. LFLex Fridman58:14

      Uh, that's the moment where you lose the mastery, uh, 'cause it's always evolving. How has the game changed?

   6. DNDaniel Negreanu58:20

      So the game has changed in terms of the way people learn it, right? When I started out, the only way to learn how to play poker was to sit your ass on the chair and play, and-

   7. LFLex Fridman58:28

      In person.

   8. DNDaniel Negreanu58:29

      Yes, in person. Play. Maybe you jot down hands on a notepad. We didn't even have cell phones back then, right? So I would write, I would write notes. I actually brought a notepad. And then, you know, analyze it and sort of try to figure it out that way and think about, you know, maybe talking to friends and different players. Like, when I grew up, there was John Jowanda, Alan Cunningham, and Phil Ivey. And we would sort of create, like, a little bit of a mastermind. "Well, how would you play this hand? What would you do here?" That was the sen- that was the extent of it, right? We never had the correct answers. We always had theories about what might be right. Not until about five, six years ago, where everything changed, where, you know, artificial intelligence created solvers that will specifically say, "Okay, this is the optimal play. This is the game theory optimal play." So now, it introduced poker to a whole new group of, like, personality types. In my day, it was people that were dregs of society that didn't fit in.

   9. LFLex Fridman59:22

      (laughs) Yeah.

   10. DNDaniel Negreanu59:22

       Not college goers with a degree. These are people who were street hustlers playing pool. They found poker, you know, and they had these unique lives, right?

   11. LFLex Fridman59:29

       Yeah.

   12. DNDaniel Negreanu59:29

       But now, because poker can be studied, much like you study, you know, university or college, you had, for example, the German contingent who was literally analyzing data and coming up with strategies based on this. And it's like, "What?" You know, and the old guy, "Ah, you know, gotta play by feel," or whatever.

   13. LFLex Fridman59:45

       Yeah.

   14. DNDaniel Negreanu59:45

       And they're like, they're learning. So I guess the way that you describe it is, like, in the old days, it required skill and talent, a card sense, right? That was the only way to become good. And today, that's not the case. Good study habits, a good work ethic in that regard can make you, like, a really good player even if you aren't all that talented or gifted. Par- having a good work ethic is a talent, right? Not necessarily card sense, but if you're able, if you're able to put in the work and, and study from these solvers, you essentially have the perfect study tool now that, that, you know, that we didn't have in my day.

10. 1:00:17 – 1:06:53

    Poker solvers

    1. LFLex Fridman1:00:17

       So what do the solvers give you? Do, do you start to memorize the optimal play for every single hand?

    2. DNDaniel Negreanu1:00:24

       You, you try your best. So again, solvers are imperfect as well in terms of the way the humans, uh, utilize them, right? Because you can give solvers a certain number of inputs in terms of what you want it to solve, but a solver can think on many, many levels. So for example, the way that a typical player would do a solve is to say, "Okay. What does the solver think is the best play here? Bet one-third pot, bet two-thirds pot, or bet one and a half times pot?" Okay? You give it three parameters. It comes out with an output, and it tells you what it, what you should do with all the different hands, you know, you have. However, that's a simplified version of what a solver would really do because a solver might-... decide that seven times the pot is best.

    3. LFLex Fridman1:01:06

       Mm-hmm.

    4. DNDaniel Negreanu1:01:06

       10% of the pot. But it, but when you're putting in a, a solve, you can only put in, you know, specific parameters. So that's why, frankly, that's typically the number, one-third, two-third, and one and a half times pot is what people often do, so they sort of have a ga- a, a vague idea of what a solver wants. But again, imperfect in terms of the, uh, imp- implementation of it, right? And memorizing all the variables like that king-jack off suit with the king of diamonds is 13%.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:01:33

       Mm-hmm.

    6. DNDaniel Negreanu1:01:33

       To, to, no one... No human b- brain can do that. So what you do is you bucket it. Like, you bucket it into, say, instead of 10,000 variables, you have 10 buckets and you say, "Okay. With these hands, we do roughly this, and we do roughly this." And you try your best to, you know, stay within those lines. But again, what I love about live poker partly is that nobody will ever be able to master game theory, you know, and s- mimic a solver.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:01:57

       But you also have to incorporate your position, where you are, and, uh, obviously what cards you have, but also the size of your stack, how much money you have, and also whether you have the ability or a desire to buy in, all those kinds of things. So you have to calculate all of that, right?

    8. DNDaniel Negreanu1:02:17

       So the, yeah, so the solver will do that, right? And essentially, you don't input your hand. It tells you, you'll look at, you'll look at the grade and be like, "All right, this is my hand."

    9. LFLex Fridman1:02:27

       Mm-hmm.

    10. DNDaniel Negreanu1:02:27

        And it tells you what it is. But it tells you what you, what you would do with any hand.

    11. LFLex Fridman1:02:30

        Mm. Yeah.

    12. DNDaniel Negreanu1:02:30

        Right? It gives you the full output.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:02:32

        And that actually gives you a better idea... 'Cause you're ultimately, like you said, playing a range of hands, not, not a hand.

    14. DNDaniel Negreanu1:02:39

        Yeah. And the solvers do things that are really interesting. Uh, you've seen AlphaGo, I would imagine?

    15. LFLex Fridman1:02:42

        Mm-hmm.

    16. DNDaniel Negreanu1:02:43

        Brilliant film.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:02:43

        Mm-hmm.

    18. DNDaniel Negreanu1:02:44

        Right? I thought. And I thought what was interesting is there was, you know, accepted theory from all the top Go players that this is what you do, but the AI was doing things way different. And they're like, "This has to be wrong." But really it wasn't. So for example, a solver may say this, right? You... Let's say you bet on the end, and you bet a lot, and a solver may say, "You should fold here with a pair of kings and a queen kicker." Which is, you know, a pair of kings. "But call with a pair of fours and an ace kicker." So it's essentially telling you that you should fold th- this hand that is much better than this. So it, uh, it begs the question, why? Because what the solvers do is they use the information of your own cards to formulate all the possible hands your opponent can have. So if your opponent is b- so basically, if you had the king-queen, you know, it may say, um, for lack of a better nerdy term, it blocks potential bluffing hands that your opponent can have. So let's say if your opponent would bluff with queen-jack, but you have a queen.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:03:48

        Mm-hmm.

    20. DNDaniel Negreanu1:03:49

        So there are less combinations of queen-jack. So it will find a better bluff catcher, if you will. So that's what's really not intuitive to poker players. Poker players usually think like, "Well, this... My hand is, is pretty good, so I gotta call." But that's not how a solver would think. A solver uses, you know, common atrix and you, you know...

    21. LFLex Fridman1:04:07

        And sometimes it's, it's tough to get, uh, the, the good why answers you just did for why a solver thinks something is better. Or maybe in poker it's a little bit easier, but in the case of Go and chess, it's not always obvious why, 'cause it's not gonna explain stuff to you.

    22. DNDaniel Negreanu1:04:20

        But I think what's the... I think one of the best ways to learn poker is when you see a solver output and it tells you one of these things, f- try to figure out why.

    23. LFLex Fridman1:04:27

        Mm-hmm.

    24. DNDaniel Negreanu1:04:28

        Why does this solver do this? Why does it want you to call with this and fold this? And try to think about it on a deeper level and you go, "Aha! Probably because this card that I have here, m- you know, changes the range of my opponent's, uh, you know, potential."

    25. LFLex Fridman1:04:42

        Uh, I'd love to get your opinion on, on your relationship with solvers. 'Cause for example, Magnus doesn't use them. His team uses them 'cause he feels like he's going to rely on it too much, and you can't use it when you're playing. What you really want is to build up extremely strong intuition without the, um, help of a solver. Is there some aspect of that that rings true to you?

    26. DNDaniel Negreanu1:05:05

        Absolutely. I totally can relate to what Magnus is saying first and foremost, because when solvers was first introduced, I didn't come from that world. I didn't... I was so intimidated 'cause I didn't know how to use it. I don't, I don't know how to do an input. So I had two guys, one guy's a data scientist, and you know, another guy's like a, you know, poker savant if you will, and they coached me and they did it.

    27. LFLex Fridman1:05:22

        Mm-hmm.

    28. DNDaniel Negreanu1:05:23

        So today, if I was in a s- tough spot, you know, and I'm like, "I don't know, what would a solver do?" I will send them the hand and they'll run the solve for me, and then sort of give me the parameters of, of what to do. When I was playing, you know, regularly using solvers with them, we were spending six to eight hours a day going over all these solves. So intuitively, I started to think and learn about what the solver would want, but I co- sort of understand where Magnus is coming from in that you don't wanna become a slave to the sim, as I say, right? There's one kid I know, I joked with him, his name's Landon Tice, and uh, you know, he made a play that the sim, you know, would say, "This is a good play." But I'm like, "It's a good play, you know, in s- in a simulated world against a robot, but it's not in practice against a human," right? You don't need to be doing that. So if you become a slave to the sim and always do what the sim says, you, you're, you're handcuffed to a certain degree.

Episode duration: 2:21:27