World Series of Poker Champion, Jeff Tomlinson

♣️ ♦️ ♥️ Jeff Tomlinson, 2015 World Series poker champion talks poker tells, card counting, rules, and stories ranging from dumbest thing seen at a poker table to the final hand before winning his gold bracelet! Even if you’re like me and do not play poker, you’re in for a real treat on this episode. Plus, jeff is such an awesome person and you’re gonna simply love the life lessons you will learn in this episode from the game of poker.♣️ ♦️ ♥️ 

On another note, I am so grateful for the introduction to Jeff from my good friend and former colleague Harry Fuller. He is one of the Secret Service agents that appeared back in episode 30.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

All right, folks, I'm Jeff Hopeck. Welcome to another episode of Interesting Humans. And my goodness, do we have one here today. So my good friend, Eddie Fuller, who was on episode 30, he's one of my very good friends that I worked with in Secret Service. Eddie gave me a call and said, Jeff, I've got a guy for you. I'm out playing professional baseball right now, and I've got a guy for you. I can't promise he's going to come on, but if he does, man, does he have a story. So Jeff, thank you for coming on first off. Appreciate it so much. Thanks for having me,

SPEAKER_02: 0:35

Jeff. My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

Jeff's claim to fame. He doesn't know how to change a light bulb, but he knows how to win a World Series poker championship. And what could be better than winning the World Series poker tournament is going in and literally not even thinking you can win and almost doing it. You were just doing it for fun, which we're going to unpack that. And that just makes it just so incredible. So Jeff, let me start off asking you, you're at a table with eight people and there's seven gold bracelets. There are seven championship bracelets. Did you think you even had a chance against these guys?

SPEAKER_02: 1:21

You know, that's a great question. We had started with 500 and some players, and by the time it got to the final table day four, I looked these guys up the night before, and it was my first final table that I've ever, you know, made.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36

And I'm thinking, boy, this guy's got$6 million in earnings. This guy to my right has two bracelets. He's 24 years old. the final table was just stacked with really accomplished poker players. But I've never really had any fear. Sometimes that was good and sometimes bad in my life, but I respected them all, but I didn't really fear them. I mean, you're playing poker. None of them guys are going to beat me up. We get two cards and they get two cards. And I just, it took me about a half hour. The first half hour, I was kind of like a deer in the headlights. But then I settled in and I go, hey, somebody's got to win this thing.

SPEAKER_01: 2:18

Yeah. You know, let's go back to the journey, which is just incredible in and of itself. So what what was going on in your life? What was the reason you even signed up to play poke? Did like to even get in this championship?

SPEAKER_02: 2:33

Well, the journey started. I grew up at the Jersey Shore

SPEAKER_00: 2:37

in

SPEAKER_02: 2:38

southern New Jersey and the casinos opened in. 1978. I happened to be 15 years old. And somehow along the way, I got the gambling bug. And I thought it was a great idea to use my brother's ID and my older brother's ID and go into the casinos and play poker with grown men that have been playing their whole lives. And I really knew nothing about it. It just intrigued me. The rush, the adrenaline, you know, you're you're competing and gambling against other people. So I, I definitely went to the school of hard knocks. I came home, broke many a night, um, not having enough money for the tolls to get home. Whoa. Uh, yeah, yeah. So I, I, yeah, I, I took it on the chin for a while, but you know, you learn from your mistakes. I realized back in the beginning, I knew nothing about poker. I, I, you know, and you learn, and if you want to get good at it and you're relentless, uh, I just kind of took little baby steps and I found that it was something I was potentially pretty good at. Yeah. And so I went from playing in the games and the casinos and the buddy of mine said to me, you know, they have the world series of poker out in Vegas every June. You should go out there. So 2010, I went out to Vegas and I had a small cash for a couple thousand and, you know, it was a great feeling. And, um, Went out a couple years after that, and then we get to 2015. I get out there, and I enter a$5,000 buy-in tournament. And my buddy calls me and says, what are you, nuts? These are all pros. You're just throwing your money away. Well, you never know. Three days later, I called him, and I said, I'm at the final table tomorrow. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

Incredible. How many

SPEAKER_02: 4:30

people started in that? There was 572 guys. At$5,000 a pop. So you're really not getting a lot of amateurs. You're getting guys that are putting$5,000 of their hard-earned money into a tournament. Sure. And you play until one guy has all the chips.

SPEAKER_01: 4:53

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02: 4:54

Yeah. So it was four 12-hour days.

SPEAKER_01: 4:57

Four 12-hour days.

SPEAKER_02: 4:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 5:01

What about you? There's got to be one thing. What about you? made it even possible to sit at the table with people of that pedigree? What trait?

SPEAKER_02: 5:15

I think there's a couple things. A lot of these guys have a lot more experience than me, but I just feel like my mental toughness from training for sports and playing baseball and coaching and football. And I just, you have to be really patient when you're playing poker because sometimes you might not get a good hand for an hour.

SPEAKER_01: 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:36

And you can't get impatient. You can't make it personal. You can't come after another guy at the table just because he said something that you didn't like. You can't make it personal. Like I'm going to take his, you know, all his chips. Sure. And you have to stay even keeled. And I feel like, you know, mentally I do a lot of yoga. I go to the gym. You try to get enough sleep. And I think all them things, if you stack them up, can give you a pretty good chance of, you know, doing well.

SPEAKER_01: 6:05

Yeah. I want to try to get everybody in a seat at the table through your eyes. Okay? Okay. So what are you looking for? What gives you any kind of an advantage? I know they say poker face.

SPEAKER_02: 6:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:29

How does it all work? What are you looking at

SPEAKER_02: 6:32

with somebody? Well, you're sitting at a table with people, some of them that you've never played with before. So you have to quickly identify, all right, this guy's a little bit older. He might be a little bit more conservative at the table. This guy's younger and he's a real wild card because he's so aggressive. You have to figure out, hey, are they playing with their chips when they have a big hand? Do they get quiet when they have a big hand? You know, are they targeting you because they think you're the weak guy at the table? So maybe you can take advantage of that because they're trying to target you. So there's so many life dynamics that come into it because you have to try to figure out what they're trying to do and how they're trying to accomplish it. And you don't have a lot of time to do it because if you make one major mistake in a tournament, you could be out on the next hand. You could play for three days straight. 35 hours straight, you make one bad mistake, one bad read, and you could be walking out the door. So that's what I love about it is that you really have to stay focused and stay sharp for long periods of time.

SPEAKER_01: 7:46

Did you have a routine before these events?

SPEAKER_02: 7:50

Yeah. First of all, a lot of these guys, man, they're night owls and they When they get done playing, they go out to the club and they go have some drinks and they unwind. I really feel like you need to get a good night's sleep and you have to be sharp. That's number one.

SPEAKER_01: 8:03

And

SPEAKER_02: 8:05

number two, I always like to get up and go get a massage or, you know, go in and get a steam room and a cold plunge and just really be prepared, get a nice breakfast and try to stack everything in your advantage because you don't know what's going to happen with the cards because that's that's an intangible that you don't know what's going to happen. But if you can be as prepared as you can get, um, I feel like that can be an advantage. If there is advantages of poker to be more prepared than the next guy mentally and physically.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

Yeah. Now you're wearing a shirt. That's pretty darn special. Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_02: 8:46

Well, I grew up in Southern New Jersey in North Wildwood, New Jersey. And, um, That is Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia Eagles country. And I've always been a Philadelphia Phillies fan. And a funny story, when I made the final table the night before, I called my mother and I said, Mom, I just made the final table. And I said, my buddy's an executive host at the Aria. And he would like me to wear an Aria poker shirt, you know, to kind of give them some pub because it's going to be on TV. Right. And I said, I think I'm going to do that because they're going to take care of me with some perks.

SPEAKER_01: 9:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 9:24

And my mother waited about one second. And she said, son, you have told me a thousand times that if you ever make a final table, you're going to wear your Philadelphia Phillies shirt. So if you don't wear your Phillies shirt, I hope you lose. Because that's bad karma.

SPEAKER_01: 9:41

Who won that argument?

SPEAKER_02: 9:43

The same person that's won every argument I've ever had with my mother. So I said, sorry to my buddy. I'll wear your poker shirt another time. I am wearing my Philly shirt. And I can't tell you how many people walked by the final table because it was up on a big stage.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 10:02

And yelled, go Philly. Wow. And they were cheering because there was four of the eight people at the final table were Europeans who are very good poker players.

SPEAKER_01: 10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 10:14

So I was kind of the Philly guy. amateur at the time, which I still consider myself an amateur.

SPEAKER_01: 10:19

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 10:21

I was the long shot at the table, so I was kind of the underdog that some people were cheering for.

UNKNOWN: 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

Pats or Genos?

SPEAKER_02: 10:29

Boy, that's a good question. I don't like the cheese whiz on my cheesesteak. I'm going to go with Chicky and Pete. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 10:40

Chicky and Pete.

SPEAKER_02: 10:42

Wow. Yeah, Chicky and Pete or Russo's in my hometown because I like the cheese melted on there. I don't like the cheese whiz. Yeah. But if you– Pat's or Gino's, I'd probably go with Pat's.

SPEAKER_01: 10:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 10:55

I've had them both. But, yeah, I love a good cheesesteak. I go up there every summer, man, and, you know, growing up at the shore, there's nothing like it.

SPEAKER_01: 11:06

Sure.

UNKNOWN: 11:07

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 11:07

And

SPEAKER_02: 11:07

somebody, another real quick story for you. When I won the bracelet, there's a philly.com.

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

Do you have it? Hold it up so anybody, you got the bracelet. I do have it here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:22

This is the WSOP bracelet. Can you see that?

SPEAKER_01: 11:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 11:27

And engraved on the back, it says the event and the year. Wow. And then they have the diamonds, the hearts, the spades. It's gold. It's special. It's pretty cool. Really cool. I've heard of guys that have gotten in financial trouble that sell their bracelets. I wouldn't part with this thing if you gave me a million bucks because they're so hard to get.

SPEAKER_01: 11:49

I'll bet. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_02: 11:53

That's okay. The day after I won, a guy posted on philly.com because at that time in 2015, the Eagles weren't that good and the Phillies weren't that good and the 76ers weren't that good. So a buddy of mine goes, some guy just posted on philly.com a picture of you with your bracelet and said, hey, somebody from Philly actually won something. I thought that was pretty cool. That's awesome. And the next morning I had literally 700 to 800 phone calls and texts.

SPEAKER_00: 12:26

No

SPEAKER_02: 12:27

way. Because it didn't end until 2 a.m. Vegas time, which was 5 a.m., my time i all my friends were watching half of them went to sleep because they had to work the next day

SPEAKER_01: 12:37

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 12:37

right so once they came across the wire that i won i was just getting calls and texts from people i haven't heard from in 10 years and

SPEAKER_01: 12:46

yeah you know it was really neat it was really neat there's the interesting thing so there's so much more to your life that i i can't wait to get into you're playing professional baseball right now as a senior, which is so cool. I think a lot of people don't even know that that type of league exists. We're going to talk about that. You owned a famous sports bar down in the Fort Lauderdale area. We're going to talk about that. I want to come back into the poker because you said a few things in our pre-interview that were just incredible to me. And one was the tells, right? The tells in poker, and I'm not a poker player. So for the people out there that might be saying, oh, that's just a standard, normal thing. I'm very intrigued by this topic, but my disclaimer is I'm not a poker player. Tell me about those tells and some of the things that you would look for and why and how that all works together.

SPEAKER_02: 13:46

Yeah, reading people at a poker table is very important. It's a skill that can get you in trouble or it can help you.

SPEAKER_00: 13:55

And

SPEAKER_02: 13:55

I've always been fairly good at reading people, you know, when you're talking to them in business or life, and if you can tell if they're BSing you or if they're lying to you. And when you're playing poker and you're playing for big money, you know, people are humans and they develop habits. And, you know, if they're nervous, they may be playing with their chips a little bit more, or they may not make eye contact with you, or they may... rapidly blink their eyes if they're bluffing you. There's a little vein in your neck that when you're nervous, it pulses. Your chest kind of, you know, when you're nervous. Would

SPEAKER_01: 14:35

you see that vein? Yes,

SPEAKER_02: 14:38

you can see it. That's why a lot of poker players today, if you watch them play poker, if they make a big bet and they're waiting for the other guy to make a decision, they'll go like this. Can you see me?

SPEAKER_01: 14:50

Really?

SPEAKER_02: 14:51

Yeah, they'll pick their shirt up and they will literally hold it over their mouth so that the other guy can't see, you know,

SPEAKER_01: 15:02

what's going on there.

SPEAKER_02: 15:04

But

SPEAKER_01: 15:05

there's so many... It's on your left side?

SPEAKER_02: 15:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 15:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 15:09

And, you know, I just think like some of the best players and the poker players in the world, they are so good at reading you. They'll tell you what cards you have in your hand. you know, what two cards you have. I've seen it happen. And, you know, that's what makes the great poker players is they just have that innate sense of how you've been playing, what your patterns are. You know, they've been watching you. And, you know, the quicker you can figure out how a person plays and how they react, the better success you're going to have.

SPEAKER_01: 15:44

Is there any merit in watching them before they get to the poker table?

SPEAKER_02: 15:49

Not really, but if I know that I'm going to be at a final table with a guy the next day and I know his name, you can look up past tournaments that he played in, watch the videos, see how he played, and that kind of stuff. But if you're sitting at a table with a guy you've never played with or you don't know much about, you have X amount of time to observe them and see how they're playing. Everybody has patterns in life and in poker. And the best players switch up how they play. They

SPEAKER_01: 16:24

switch up. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:25

You know, sometimes they'll only play great cards and then other times they'll play bad cards and bluff you. And, you know, they're just unpredictable. And the unpredictable players are, in my mind, the hardest ones to play against.

SPEAKER_01: 16:40

Because they're always changing it up.

SPEAKER_02: 16:41

Always changing it up. I mean, there's an old axiom. The older the person is, the more conservative they are. You know, you sit down at the table with a 70-year-old guy. He usually respects his money a little bit more. He's not going to play like a wild card, you know. So you know that if he's making a big bet, chances are he's got the goods.

SPEAKER_01: 17:00

He's got the goods. What would you do? What are some things that you've done? Are you trying to, like, throw off a cent sometimes? Yes. Wrong cent?

SPEAKER_02: 17:09

Sometimes you have to bluff early in a tournament, and even if you lose the hand, just show people, listen, I have that in my arsenal, you know. You know, I'm going to bluff you. I'm going to make a bet on something when I don't have anything. But just to let you know, the next time I do that, I may have it. You know, so it's just one thing I don't do is make it personal to table. Some guys come after you. They try to get you angry. They try to get you on what I call what we call tilt. They try to make it get personal with you. So you'll dislike them. And then you try to come after them. That's what they want you to do. And you have to be even keeled. You have to stay in your lane and just to make the best possible decision. You're making decisions every minute or two all day long.

SPEAKER_01: 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:02

And you have to make good decisions based on your gut. Right. And based on past experiences.

SPEAKER_01: 18:09

That's incredible. What are some things you can't... do at the table and something that comes to mind, like can you have water on the table, drinking water? Oh

SPEAKER_02: 18:19

yeah, you can drink water, you can order food, you can get a massage. Like

SPEAKER_01: 18:23

during play?

SPEAKER_02: 18:24

Oh, during play, yes. Yes. The things you play, there's two hour levels and then you get a bathroom break for 15 minutes every two hours. So if you're playing for 12 hours, you're playing six two hour sessions And you get a 15 minute break, you know, between that to use the restroom, go get something, but it's very laid back. But when you're playing for big money and you and I talked about it before, some guys handle it very well. Some guys don't,

SPEAKER_00: 18:57

you

SPEAKER_02: 18:57

know, I've knocked guys out of tournaments and they've got up shook my hand and said, Hey, it was really nice to meet you. Good luck. And then I've knocked guys out of tournaments that have gotten up and said, You're the worst player I've ever played with. I don't know how you ever get as far as you get. And it tells you a little bit about their life, that they're not really happy in life. There's other things that are bothering them or they're hurting for money and they needed this money to win this tournament or

SPEAKER_01: 19:32

they were in

SPEAKER_02: 19:33

trouble. So you've learned a lot about life when you're sitting at a poker table with eight other guys

SPEAKER_01: 19:39

from

SPEAKER_02: 19:40

all over the country, all over the world, all kinds of economic backgrounds. And some guys are multimillionaires. Some guys needed to borrow money to get into the tournament.

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

So

SPEAKER_02: 19:53

it's fascinating to me. But I've met so many really interesting people and great people, so many professional athletes, actors, musicians that love poker.

SPEAKER_01: 20:05

And, you

SPEAKER_02: 20:06

know,

SPEAKER_01: 20:07

Incredible. Okay, that helps me understand that they come from every walk of life, but let's flip that on its head. That's the difference is, what are some similarities that every poker player at that level is going to exude in their life?

SPEAKER_02: 20:27

Yeah, well, the ones that I think play at a high level and are profitable, and I think I told you that like 7% to 8% of poker players... are actually profitable. The rest lose. And it's just a fact of life. And there's thousands of guys walking around saying that they are professional poker players because they don't do anything else for a living, yet they're losing money all the time. You know, if you get in a tournament and you're going out to Las Vegas, you've got to pay for your plane fare, you've got to pay for your hotel, you've got to pay for your meals, you know, and You're going to cash in a tournament about 10% of the time. So 90% of the time in poker, you are going to fail. So how are you going to deal with that? And it's the guys that understand, listen, I'm not always going to succeed, but I'm going to get better and I'm going to get better. And money management is so huge. You have to know when not to play over your head. If you don't have a big bankroll, don't get in a$5,000 tournament. You know, because you're just overextending yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 21:37

Sure. In a$5,000 tournament like that, can you lose anything more than$5,000 or you just lose the entry fee?

SPEAKER_02: 21:47

No, you just lose the entry fee. That's the difference between a cash game and a tournament. In a tournament, you're in for$5,000. You get X amount of chips. And as soon as you go bust and lose your chips, you are out of the tournament. Okay. You're done. In a cash game, if you sit down with$5,000 and somebody takes all your chips, you can rebuy. Oh,

SPEAKER_01: 22:12

so keep up. In a cash game,

SPEAKER_02: 22:14

if you go on a bad roll in a cash game, you can lose$40,000,$50,000 in a session by just keep playing. Now, when I'm running bad in a cash game and I'm not playing well and things aren't going well, sometimes it's time for a break. Just say, it's not my day.

SPEAKER_01: 22:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 22:31

Not my day. I'm going to go home, jump in a pool and, uh, and live for another day.

SPEAKER_01: 22:38

Some

SPEAKER_02: 22:40

guys they're losing, they get all on tilt and then they start getting, you know, upset and mad. And then they just start playing every hand and they make it personal and, and they get killed.

SPEAKER_01: 22:52

Yeah, for

SPEAKER_02: 22:53

sure. And, um, that's why it's, it's a really tough, I wouldn't, when I was coaching, um, Pop Warner football, and when I won my bracelet, I used to train kids in football. I had parents call me after that saying, hey, will you train my kids in poker? Wow. And I'm like, you know, I love your kid, but I don't want to be the reason he doesn't go to college. You know? I don't want to get this kid started on a poker journey.

SPEAKER_01: 23:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 23:24

And all of a sudden, he doesn't want to go to college anymore. He doesn't want to chase his dreams that he had. Right. And, you know, because it's not for everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 23:34

Yeah. All right. If you went to a, if I said, pack up the car, we're going to the mall, you and me, we pull into the mall. And I said, go in, there's however many thousand people and find a poker player. Can you spot one?

SPEAKER_02: 23:51

In a mall, that would be tough. But you, you may. I mean, the big, the big rage for years now is online poker. Right. And some of these online poker players literally play 10 screens at a time, all day long, 16, 18 hours a day. They haven't seen the sun in two years. They eat takeout food. And hey, I have nothing against it. If they're enjoying it, that's fine. But yeah, a lot of poker players, especially in the online community, it's a grind and they don't leave their computer all day long. I don't like to play online poker. I like to see people. I like the interaction of people, you know, but different strokes for different folks. But I could probably, if I was in a casino and you were walking around, I could definitely pick the poker players.

SPEAKER_01: 24:52

You could? Are they more competitive than the average person or what is it going to be?

SPEAKER_02: 25:00

They just, you know, poker is a way that if you're good, you can make money and it's an enjoyable thing to do. You know, a lot of guys don't want to work nine to five jobs and they don't want to, you know, they don't want to punch a time clock or answer to a boss. None of us like to, but some people, you have to feed your family and pay your bills, you know? But a lot of these guys, they just feel like poker is an avenue for them to travel and have fun. and make money.

SPEAKER_01: 25:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 25:32

But on the other side of the coin, 90% of them aren't making money.

SPEAKER_01: 25:38

Sure. When they, when you got the bracelet, do you remember the first thing that went through your mind?

SPEAKER_02: 25:45

Yeah. It was like that 20 minutes of fame where you just, it was like an out of, out of body experience, you know, just kind of walking around and, and did this just happen? You know, it took me about a half hour to, uh, to let it sink in and I went back to my hotel because it was three o'clock in the morning and I just laid in bed and stared at the ceiling because I couldn't sleep. The adrenaline was just, you know, through the roof. Yeah. And two hours later, my phone started ringing left and right, you know, from people. I fell asleep. I can't believe you won it. I was eight hours heads up, eight straight hours heads up with a 25-year-old young man from France who had already won a bracelet previously. Yeah. And it was just him and I, like if there's eight guys in a hand, sometimes there's two other guys playing. You can kind of take a minute. You're not in the hand. You can, when it's, when you're heads up with another guy, it's just constantly one hand after another, after another, after another, and you can't make a mistake. Yeah. So you better be dialed in.

SPEAKER_01: 26:54

So at that final moment, a couple hours before you won, there had to be some kind of shift where you sat down and you probably felt, what am I doing here? I'm gonna come in eight out of eight. And then I'm guessing, I don't know how it works, but was there a shift where at some point you were like, oh, wait, maybe I can win this whole darn thing. Did that happen or did it go by? It kind of

SPEAKER_02: 27:24

did. One guy got knocked out really early.

SPEAKER_01: 27:27

And

SPEAKER_02: 27:28

then I got in a hand with a guy and I played the hand really well and I won the hand. And that was kind of like my deep breath moment. Like, all right, you know, you, you want a hand against a really good player.

SPEAKER_01: 27:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:41

Um, you know, you belong here. And then the longer it went, the more comfortable I felt. And then another guy got knocked out. Now it's down to six of us, you know, and then, um, I knocked another guy out. There was five of us left. So I just felt like, you know, listen, there's five guys here. You can do this. Just don't play any differently than you always do. You know, don't play scared. You can't play scared.

SPEAKER_00: 28:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:11

You know, anything in this life. When you're playing sports, you can't, you can't play baseball scared. You can't coach scared. You have to put the preparation in and know that trust, you know, trust yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 28:24

Yeah. Is it as much, so there's five people left. Is it as much as somebody making a mistake as it is you doing something really good and outsmarting somebody? It's both. It's

SPEAKER_02: 28:37

both.

SPEAKER_01: 28:38

What happened in your case?

SPEAKER_02: 28:40

Yeah, you see the big screen over there. And as guys get knocked out, the pay jumps go like$100,000, you know? Yeah, so you're... you know, if two guys are in a hand and you're cheering for the guy that has more chips than the other guy, because you want him to get knocked out, you know, so that you can have an automatic pay jump of a hundred thousand. So I'm looking at the board and there's like five of us left and I'm like, wow, you know, and you just, you can't be, you can't be scared. Like I said, but you have to be smart. And if you feel in your gut that you have a better hand than that guy, You can't say, oh my God, if I lose this hand and I'm out, I'm going to lose$5,000 and I might not. You have to go with your instincts and everything that you've ever believed in and go with your gut and be able to live with the outcome.

SPEAKER_01: 29:31

Yeah, for sure. How much was the purse that you won?

SPEAKER_02: 29:34

It was$587,000. Wow. It was first place. Yeah. And second place was like$385,000. So him and I were playing for... like a 200K difference.

SPEAKER_01: 29:51

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02: 29:52

And it was an eight hour battle and he was ahead of me three times where I had to go all in and I was at risk and I won three hands, different hands where he would have won. So that's the razor thin margin of error. If I had finished second, nobody cares about who finishes second. No bracelet. Not the prestige of saying I was the last man standing. I feel extremely fortunate.

SPEAKER_01: 30:25

Did you ever have sponsors or anything like that?

SPEAKER_02: 30:28

No. A ton of players do have sponsors and I understand that. A lot of guys, if they're getting in a$5,000,$10,000 tournament, they'll have three guys that'll have 20% of them or 30% of them. I've always just said, listen, I'm only going to play tournaments where, you know, I, I feel comfortable and I can afford it because I'm doing all the work, you know, I'm the one that's putting in all the work and, you know, you know, somebody is, has 50% of you, you got to give them 50% of what you win.

SPEAKER_01: 31:00

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 31:01

You know, but I, I understand that some people, you know, they need people to stake them and to get in the game so they can play more tournaments and, you know, they can play these tournaments, but I, That particular tournament, yeah, and I did not have anybody that was involved with me, so it was all me. And two years after that, I finished third in a marathon tournament, almost won my second bracelet out of 2,600 players. Oh! I got third place, so... There's not a ton of guys that have multiple bracelets and there's a lot better poker players than me walking around. Believe me, I know that.

SPEAKER_01: 31:41

A

SPEAKER_02: 31:42

second bracelet I came very close to and I got knocked out in third place.

SPEAKER_01: 31:47

Are you going to try for another one? Oh, absolutely. I go out

SPEAKER_02: 31:51

every June. I

SPEAKER_01: 31:52

have

SPEAKER_02: 31:52

40 events over the month of June. I go out for two weeks and I play in like seven events. And I love being out there. You see people from all walks of life. You know, some days if I just not feeling it, I'll just go hang out at the pool or walk the strip or go get a nice meal. Yeah. But if I'm playing, I'm zoned in and my phone's turned off and, you know, you're playing against the best players in the world out there. So you have to be on your A game.

SPEAKER_01: 32:25

Yeah. Is there any way to practice or is practice just playing somewhere?

SPEAKER_02: 32:31

Practice is playing somewhere. Practice is reading books of great players that have played in the past, going online and watching these high roller tournaments with$50,000 buy-ins and just watching the best of the best of the best and how they play, you know, and how they approach the game. Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 32:58

As far as advantages, are there any... physical advantages in this game? Can you be taller and you'd be better, shorter, left hand, right hand, anything? No,

SPEAKER_02: 33:10

not really. It's funny because some people come up to me and say, do you consider poker a sport? I don't know how to answer that question. It's competitive, yes. Some people are better than others, yes. And there's reasons for that, like we went over. Sure. The work that you put in, you're going to get more out of it. But no, I mean, you could be a woman, you could be a man, you could be a hundred pounds, you could be 600 pounds, you know, if you play correctly and you, you know, and, and you do all the right things, you can be successful.

SPEAKER_01: 33:48

Yeah. That makes sense. I'm intrigued by, by that. it's much more than just some cards and sitting down. And, you know, like you said, you, you'll get a massage, you'll get sauna, you'll get ice bath. You have a routine prior. So some other things that can be added to that list is like practicing memory stuff and card counting. I don't know. Are those things all.

SPEAKER_02: 34:17

Yeah, you're right. You are right. I mean, you have to have some mathematical skills to figure out, What are the odds of me winning this hand with the cards I have?

SPEAKER_01: 34:26

Tell me what you do there. Give me an example of that. How would you figure that out so quickly?

SPEAKER_02: 34:31

I'll give you an example, a basic example. If you're holding queen, jack of hearts in your hand, and they have the flop, which is three cards still on the table. If two hearts are on the board, that means you have a flush draw. One more heart, and you can get a flush. Now you're getting two more cards in the hand. Okay. So you have a 25% chance of getting that heart because there's four suits. You follow me?

SPEAKER_01: 34:59

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 34:59

So you have to figure out, all right, this guy just made a bet for X amount. Is it worth it for me to try to catch that flush with two cards left to come?

SPEAKER_01: 35:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:11

You know, and you might have a pair of tens in your hand and the flop comes queen, jack, four. Now there's two cards that are over your tens on the board, right? and somebody bets. And you have to determine very quickly, does he have a queen in his hand? Does he have a better hand than you? So sometimes it's better off just to let him win the hand, preserve your chips and move on to the other hand.

SPEAKER_01: 35:39

Can you recall a time where you spot on knew somebody's cards and you won a game because you knew their cards?

SPEAKER_02: 35:49

I had a spot at my final table where I had eighth high, which is not even a pair. All the cards were dealt out, and this guy made a very large bet. And there was two hearts on the flop, and I put him on a flush draw, and no other hearts came out. And I just felt in my mind, I had that gut feeling, that my eighth high was good.

SPEAKER_01: 36:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:17

So I want to... 500k chickpot where I just had the, you know, I just felt like in my heart of hearts that I had the better hand with Ace High. Yeah. And when I called him, he couldn't believe that I called him. And, you know, he goes, he goes, you called me with Ace High? I said, yeah, I put you on a flush draw. I think you missed. And he goes, well, obviously I did miss. So You know, but I've had instances where I've made the wrong decision. Sure. Yeah. But when you're in a big spot in a big tournament, you have to trust your instincts and your gut.

SPEAKER_01: 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:01

And if you lose, move on to the next hand. Don't spill over it. That's the best advice I give to people. You know, don't get mad and then let that go into the next hand. Right. And that's why, you know, people say to me, All these great poker players that have won so much money and all these bracelets and people say, yeah, he's lucky. Well, you know, you know, what's he get lucky all the time? Right. I mean, you know, the best players at the end of the day are the ones that are constantly playing for bracelets and constantly winning money. Yeah. So they must be doing something right on a consistent basis.

SPEAKER_01: 37:40

Yeah, I think, was it Ben Hogan or Walter Hagan, one of the two? The more I practice, the luckier I get. The luckier I get.

SPEAKER_02: 37:47

I used to tell my football players that. I'd say, you'd be amazed if you put the work in and you work hard, how the ball will bounce your way.

SPEAKER_01: 37:57

Yeah, other people see it as luck. All right, is there some kind of shot clock? Or how long do you have to play? That's

SPEAKER_02: 38:06

a great question. Typically... you try to take less than a minute to make your decision, okay? Okay. If you are in a really big spot and you take a long time, one of the players at the table, if they get annoyed or they think you're taking too long, they can call clock on you. And that usually irritates the person that's thinking. But they can call clock and then a floor person will come over and they will count down one minute. They will give you one minute to make your decision.

SPEAKER_00: 38:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 38:41

If somebody calls the clock on you. It doesn't happen a lot. Yeah. But some guys do it just sometimes they do it to get the other guy upset. You know, sometimes they do it to get in his head. Other times they'll do it because the guy is just simply taking too long to make his decision. You know? Yeah. But yeah, I've seen arguments at poker tables. I've seen almost fistfights at poker tables. They will give you a timeout at a poker table if you use foul language or you do something that's illegal to the rules of the game. They will tell you to stand away from the table. They will give you a 10-minute timeout.

SPEAKER_01: 39:24

Can you wear any kind of glasses you want? Any kind of hat over your face?

SPEAKER_02: 39:30

A lot of guys wear sunglasses because they don't want them to see their eyes. I've never felt comfortable wearing them.

SPEAKER_00: 39:37

But

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

yeah, a lot of guys wear headphones. A lot of guys wear their hood up. A lot of guys wear sunglasses. It just depends on what your style is and what makes you comfortable at the table.

SPEAKER_01: 39:54

Yeah, sure. That makes sense. What would be an example of a rules infraction?

SPEAKER_02: 40:00

A rule infraction? The table goes in turn around the table. One guy goes at a time, okay? So say it's not your turn for four more players. And you go, I'm all in. Or you make a bet and it's not even your turn. That can be construed as you angle shooting or trying to get information from the other players that haven't acted yet. So sometimes you'll get a warning and they'll say, it's not, it wasn't your turn. You know, this is a warning, or if it's a big spot in a big tournament, they'll give you a penalty and say, you went out of turn. That's not right. You know.

SPEAKER_01: 40:47

You lose your turn?

SPEAKER_02: 40:49

You, well, a lot of them will just give you a warning and then they'll go back to the guy whose turn it actually was. And then you have to wait your turn.

SPEAKER_01: 40:58

But

SPEAKER_02: 40:59

a lot of guys, if you lose foul language or you assault somebody at the table or you assault a dealer at the table verbally, they will say, you know, we don't allow that. You know, I've seen guys yell and scream at the dealer just because the card they put out. The dealer doesn't care who wins. You know, why take it out on them? Right. But, you know, you get all walks of life.

SPEAKER_01: 41:26

Is everybody competitive? Is that

SPEAKER_02: 41:29

what we all have? Everybody is very, very, very competitive or they wouldn't be there. Yeah. But like I said, I've had guys that verbally assault you for 10 minutes out the door and other guys will lose a big hand and they'll shake your hand and wish you well and say, nice to meet you and I'll see you down the road.

SPEAKER_01: 41:50

Which one of those are you?

SPEAKER_02: 41:52

When I was younger, I was kind of in the middle.

SPEAKER_01: 41:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 41:57

I didn't know how to control my emotions. But you live and learn and you see how other people, how it looks when other people don't react in a good way.

SPEAKER_01: 42:07

And

SPEAKER_02: 42:08

you learn from it. So I'd like to think that I was kind of a little bit that guy when I was younger. But now I try to be a gentleman at the table and be respectful of everybody. And it's a game. At the end of the day, it's a game. They're trying to take your money. You're trying to take their money. And as long as they don't cheat you, they have every right to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 42:33

Right. Speaking of competitive, I love this story. I want you to tell it again. I want Eddie to hear it. So our mutual friend that introduced us, Eddie, you play baseball with, and I worked with him in Secret Service. So he was at the end of his career, and I was just getting started in my career. So he was in his last decade. when I was getting started, we'll say that. And we met in Maryland and have been good friends ever since. Is he competitive?

SPEAKER_02: 43:04

Eddie Fuller is one of the most competitive athletes that I've ever been on a field with. I played against him five years ago. Yeah. And I pitched against his team. He plays on one of the best travel teams in the country, the Boston Wolfpack. And I played against his team. I was with a team from Philadelphia and I had a pretty good game that day pitching. So someone from their team reached out to me and said, you know, would you like to play with us in Vegas? So I go play with this Wolfpack. Now I'm new on the team and, you know, I didn't really know anybody. And they got this guy named Eddie Fuller, who's the leadoff batter. And he walks on the first pitch. He steals seconds, sliding in headfirst.

SPEAKER_01: 43:51

60 years old sliding in 50

SPEAKER_02: 43:53

years old sliding into the base you know then he scores on a base hit and he slides into home pops right up uniform dirty he doesn't say a lot he is just one of the most competitive baseball players that I've ever played with and he's a great guy off the field like I said he doesn't say anything he's humble but he will run through a wall to win and I love playing with guys like Eddie Fuller. And I've been with his team ever since. And he, you know, him and I, I would like to think we've become pretty good buddies. And, you know, I think his life story is fascinating being in the Secret Service. And I always ask him and he asked me about my poker. But yeah, I'll go into a foxhole with Eddie Fuller any day of the week. He is, you know, a thousand miles an hour all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 44:46

Yeah, he was on episode 30, him and another Secret Service agent. And I worked with both of those guys. And it's so, so fun to reconnect and have them, have them both on, but both great storytellers. All right. Were you, were you ever recognized out in public? Anybody ever come up to you and go, are you that guy that won?

SPEAKER_02: 45:06

Yeah, I get it in Vegas all the time when I go out there. Now they all call me coach. That's cool. If I walk into a poker room where I sit down at a table, from time to time, because poker players, they're always searching for knowledge. They're always watching poker. They have seen at some point or another if I've won. Guys will say to me, hey, didn't you win the 2015 5K event? I just kind of nod and try to keep it under the radar, but I'll thank them for acknowledging it, you know, and, and, you know, if they want to talk about it, you know, how's it feel? And I said, it just feels amazing. I, I hope you win a bracelet someday, you know, because I'd like, I would like everybody to have that feeling.

SPEAKER_01: 45:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 45:55

You know,

SPEAKER_01: 45:56

special. Do you, do you go out and teach this at all? Any clubs or anybody ask you to come out and consult with them or help them or write a book or? No,

SPEAKER_02: 46:07

I've had guys ask me, you know, call me up and say, Hey, hey, this is how I got knocked out of the tournament. This was the hand and this is how I played it. Should I have done anything differently? Going over the hands with you and going over. And I'll just give them my best opinion on how I think they should have done it. Because I'm not perfect. I've made tons of mistakes on the poker table. And I'm going to continue to make tons of mistakes. But talking it out with guys and and trying to go over the hand, that's how you get better.

SPEAKER_01: 46:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 46:41

Maybe you could have played the hand a little bit differently, and next time, maybe you will.

SPEAKER_01: 46:46

What was one of the dumbest things you've done on a poker table? Anything stand out for you?

SPEAKER_02: 46:53

Yeah, I've done a couple dumb things. A guy made a bet in a big spot, and I said, I'm all in, and I was so excited that I turned my cards over before he made his decision. So he knew exactly, do you follow what I'm

SPEAKER_00: 47:13

saying?

SPEAKER_02: 47:13

Yeah, I got excited. I didn't realize that he had not called my all in yet. And I turned my cards over. So he knew exactly where he was at. He knew whether he had a better hand than me or

SPEAKER_00: 47:29

not.

SPEAKER_02: 47:29

And he folded the hand, whereas I think he would have called me if I didn't show my cards.

SPEAKER_01: 47:36

So was that an accident by him or is that a strategy?

SPEAKER_02: 47:40

No, it was an accident by me that I showed my cards.

SPEAKER_01: 47:45

So then

SPEAKER_02: 47:46

he looked and saw my cards and he knew that I had had him beat. Wow. Because he hadn't made his decision yet.

SPEAKER_00: 47:53

So

SPEAKER_02: 47:53

I gave him a clear, clear advantage in that hand by seeing my cards. And I cost myself a lot of chips because he may have called me and I had the better hand. So I learned my lesson. Don't get too excited. You know, don't turn your cards over until he makes his decision. You know, and I've gone out of turn sometimes. I've, you know, if you play cards long enough, just like baseball or any, if you're in business, you're going to make bad decisions. Yeah. And you just have to live with it. You know, poker, if you get a poker turn, you're making 200 decisions in a turn.

SPEAKER_01: 48:36

Wow. What would surprise people? Throw out one, two, a couple things. What's really surprising that we may not know about it or we may not know what goes on behind the scenes kind of stuff? Just interesting.

SPEAKER_02: 48:56

A lot. Well, that's a great question. A very, very, very large portion of poker players are pretty much dead broke. And they're relying on other people, friends and people in the poker community to keep their poker afloat by putting them in tournaments and lending them money. Because like I said, it's very difficult. Only the top small percent are actually making money. And they are guys that are just high level poker players that study the game every day. algorithms now and there's robots and there's stuff that helps you just, you know, make the absolute perfect decision on every hand. I mean, I play with guys that play 20 times more poker than I have. They're better poker players than me. But you just have to strap yourself in and say, listen, today, today, maybe, you know, I'll get them. But the more work you get in and you also have to be To be a great poker player, some guys, they work at it as much as they can. They're just only going to get to a certain level, just like in sports. But the guys that are really smart, really intuitive, and are fearless, and put the work in,

SPEAKER_00: 50:24

that's

SPEAKER_02: 50:26

a lethal combination. They're going to be really good.

SPEAKER_01: 50:31

If you were just starting right now, would you go out and study math?

SPEAKER_02: 50:40

It's funny. I've never been good in regular applied math, like geometry and calculus. I was never good in. But when it comes to calculating odds, when it comes to gambling, I'm pretty good.

SPEAKER_01: 50:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 50:55

Practical. Because it's what I love to do and what I've done. Yeah. But as far as the other mathematics, I'm not good at. And some people are just the opposite.

SPEAKER_01: 51:04

They're

SPEAKER_02: 51:05

great in trigonometry, but when it comes to odds in a poker game, figuring it out on the fly, they're not as good. So that's one thing that I'm good at. But the one thing that I, if somebody said, give me one piece of advice from poker, if you're getting started or just if you want to get good at poker, is I say, don't seek out the good players. Play in games with amateurs, right? playing games that you know that you can win, that you think you can win at. For example, if you're an amateur, you're not going to walk into the Bellagio and say, where's your best poker game and where's your best players at? I want to play with them.

SPEAKER_01: 51:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 51:48

You know, they're going to chop you up quickly.

SPEAKER_01: 51:52

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 51:52

You know, and you're going to lose your money. So don't get in a game that's too much for you financially because then you're not going to play your game. You're going to play scared. And don't seek out the great players. Don't have an ego and say, I want to play against Phil Ivey. I want to play against the greatest players in the world because they're great for a reason. And you're not going to beat them on a consistent basis.

SPEAKER_01: 52:17

Right. Wow. Do people playing like poker players, you consider yourself a professional, I guess, right? You're a professional poker player?

SPEAKER_02: 52:27

I mean, it's not the sole source of income for me. And it's not the sole... which is basically the definition of a poker player. But, you know, you can call me an amateur, call me a pro, whatever you want to call me. I just hope I get some respect at the table. But most pros are guys that all they do is play poker.

SPEAKER_01: 52:44

So full-time. Okay. Are they sticking to poker only like in their, we'll call it leisure time, but

SPEAKER_02: 52:52

are

SPEAKER_01: 52:52

they sticking to poker only or are they mixing it up and playing everything and other games?

SPEAKER_02: 52:58

You know, unfortunately, again, I know of a lot of really, really good poker players that become gambling degenerates and they will cash really big in a poker tournament. And as soon as they leave the cashier window, they're at the craps table and they're at the blackjack table. And they're betting the horses or they're whatever else. And casinos weren't built on people winning money. That's

SPEAKER_01: 53:27

a great quote.

SPEAKER_02: 53:29

Yeah, I have a saying that the only thing that pays out in a casino is an ATM machine.

SPEAKER_00: 53:36

And

SPEAKER_02: 53:38

I found that out the hard way by going to casinos when I was a teenager and losing all my money. And I didn't even have the money to afford the tolls on the way home. I had to blow the tolls on the way home because I didn't have 50 cents to pay the toll. Oh,

SPEAKER_00: 53:54

yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 53:55

Yeah, I gravitated away from the table games when I realized you're not going to win in the long run. They don't put a game on a casino floor until it's been tested and tried and they have a two to three to four point advantage on the player.

SPEAKER_01: 54:15

Yeah, that makes sense. So for you, just your personal experience here,

SPEAKER_00: 54:20

is

SPEAKER_01: 54:21

it... as much gambling as it is the love of poker? Or is this, like, is it 50-50? Or do you love the gambling more? And if they ban poker forever, would you find something else then to gamble at? Or what's the breakdown? That's

SPEAKER_02: 54:41

a great question. I have gambled at just about everything. I've gotten away from the table games over the years because I just... I got smarter and wiser and realized that in the long run, that's,

SPEAKER_01: 54:54

you

SPEAKER_02: 54:54

know, it's not going to benefit

SPEAKER_01: 54:56

me.

SPEAKER_02: 54:56

Yeah. I love playing poker, but it also gives me that rush that gambler, you know, the gambler loves and the adrenaline of I'm in a big poker tournament and I'm still in this tournament. And, you know, I can see the prize at the end and just that journey of, is an adrenaline rush.

SPEAKER_01: 55:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 55:19

You know, and I'm very competitive and I want to win and I want to beat these guys. Sure. And I also love playing poker. You go out, you're with a bunch of guys at a table and you're talking sports with them or you're talking politics or you're talking, oh, you have a son, he plays football. You know, how old is he? And, you know, and they tell you about their family and their life journey and what they do for a living. I've had guys tell me great places to go hiking and or, you know, great countries to go visit. You meet different people and, you know, you just get so much out of it. And every time I get done a poker tournament, so many good things happen to you. And, you know, you meet great people that you see at the next tournament. Now you know his name, you know, you know where he's from. And, you know, and you just, it's just, to me, it's a rush. It's a rush. And my question would be 50-50. I love the gamble. I love the adrenaline, but I also love the game of poker and

SPEAKER_01: 56:19

what it

SPEAKER_02: 56:20

encompasses.

SPEAKER_01: 56:21

Yeah, that's really cool. How would somebody cheat at poker?

SPEAKER_02: 56:27

You can cheat at poker, well, online, there's several ways to cheat at poker. I'll just give you one. You and I go sit at the same table in a poker game, okay? And you get on your phone and I get on my phone And as the hands are being dealt, you say, hey, I just got dealt this hand. I just got dealt this hand. And you're actually playing with your buddy, you know, against the rest of the table.

SPEAKER_00: 56:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 56:56

So you can gang up on people. You know what your buddy has. Your buddy can say, listen, I just got pocket aces. You better fold. It's a huge advantage that way. You know, you have a phone at a table. No, this is online when you're playing on your computer.

SPEAKER_01: 57:10

Oh, I'm sorry, I switched over. Yeah, that's online. Okay, okay. That's

SPEAKER_02: 57:14

one of the reasons I don't play online.

SPEAKER_01: 57:16

Got it, yeah. But at an actual

SPEAKER_02: 57:17

poker table, the only way you can really cheat is if you peek at another player's cards, you know, when he's looking at them, which is really unethical, and people have done it. You know, it's kind of hard to cheat. There was a guy in Atlantic City three years ago You're not going to believe this, but this guy figured out what kind of chips they were using. He manufactured his own chips. And he took them out of his pocket and introduced them to the game. And they found out eventually because they only issue a certain amount of chips in a tournament. If you have 100 players and each player gets 40,000 chips, the math tells you how many chips are in the game. Right. Eventually they found out, this is a great story, they found out they were on to him and he was up in his room, it was on dinner break, and he was up in his room and the chips that he had he put back in his pocket and was gonna put them back on the table. And they found out and they were going up to his room and he flushed all the chips down the toilet. And now this was playing for thousands and thousands of dollars. Right. And he's cheating other players. Well, obviously his poker reputation is now done and he was charged criminally and he was banned from ever playing poker again.

SPEAKER_00: 58:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 58:50

So if you get caught cheating, you're, you're, you're going to be ostracized, you know, in the poker community.

SPEAKER_01: 58:57

What's the association like for golf? It's PGA for golf. There's MLB. Is there something for poker?

SPEAKER_02: 59:04

Yeah, they have the World Series of Poker, WSOP.

SPEAKER_01: 59:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 59:08

And then they also have the WPT, which is the World Poker Tour, which you may have seen on TV with Vince Van Patten, the old tennis player. And they have a tour and they go all over the country. So you don't just have to play in the World Series in June. They could have something in Las Vegas. They could have a tournament in the Bahamas and... You go over and play in that tournament in the Bahamas and some guys travel 52 weeks a year and wherever the tournaments are, they are.

SPEAKER_01: 59:40

There's always something going.

SPEAKER_02: 59:41

There's always something going on. I know people that have moved to Vegas just to play poker. A lot of them get chewed up and spit out and come back home.

SPEAKER_01: 59:57

All right, I could imagine there are some incredible life lessons in the game of poker. Take me through some of them.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:07

Oh, there's so many. Right at the top is that just like in life, you're not always going to succeed. You're going to fail more often than you're going to succeed in poker. And as everyone knows in life, everything can be going along great for you. You know, a month, two months, three months, and then all of a sudden, bang, bang, bang, you get hit with adversity or,

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:32

you

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:33

know, illness or something in your family. And, you know, it's how you deal with it. In poker, if you're not playing well and things aren't going well, you can't change who you are. You can't change how you're playing. And you have to stay the course. You know, I always say it's a marathon, not a sprint.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:52

Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:53

Yeah. So, you know, if you're going to play the game and you want to actually try to be good at it, you have to do the things that it takes, which is keep up with the game, number one, because the game is evolving all the time. Sure. With new wave of players that are playing, these young guys that see, they play so many hands and they just, you know, they play 5,000 hands a day. Now, I might not play for a month, and then I go out to a tournament in Vegas, and I'm playing against guys that are just getting those repetitions every day. So it gets harder and harder.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:33

Yeah, I'll bet. Are there new strategies? Are there new tactics coming into the game? Or is it just about getting better at ones that exist?

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:43

Yeah, there are. They have these, like I said, these different algorithms and different things that... show you what you should do in every spot.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:53

Um, but I don't like to be like a robot, you know, I like to, uh, you know, sometimes you have to move it around, but, um, you know, at the end of the day, it just comes down to how you can read people, how much you're fearless and that, you know, you're going to make a stand when you need to make a stand and that don't let people push you around. And, um, and just be able to deal with the fact that I've had summers when I went to Vegas and I played in seven events and didn't cash in any. But I came back and said, you know what, I had a good time and I played the best I could and it just wasn't my year. So unfortunately for me, I started gambling at a very young age and went to the school hard knocks

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:44

A lot. Right, which I doubt there's a degree at a university for this

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:49

stuff. No, I had a quick story for you. When I was 13 years old, the Dallas Cowboys were playing the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, and I thought it was a good idea to bet six different guys$5 on the game, which was a lot of money in 1975.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:13

when

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:14

you don't have two nickels to rub together. So my team lost. So I woke up in the morning and I told my mom I wasn't feeling good. I didn't want to go to school today because I didn't want to face the music. And she goes, okay, if you don't feel good, you can stay home. Well, at lunchtime at noon, there's a knock on the door and my mom goes to the door and there's five people lined up. Mrs. Tomlinson, where's your son? We're here to get our money. And I think that's when my parents realized that I had the gambling bug.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:55

How did that end? Well, it has to

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:59

be continued. Oh,

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:00

yeah, yeah. But how did the kid, did they get their money, the kids? She

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:03

paid them because she's always told me, always pay your debts. Yeah. But I was washing a lot of dishes and vacuuming a lot of floors and taking a lot of garbage out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:11

I'll

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:11

bet.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:12

For the next month or so and, you know, learned a valuable lesson.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:18

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:19

You know, don't write checks that you can't cash or however that goes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:24

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:25

But that, you know, that led to a life of, like I said, going to the casinos when they were first opened and, you know, losing and driving home with no money and just feeling... you know, just like you got kicked in the head and,

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:40

you know,

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:40

going home and going, you know, I could have done X amount with that money. I could have done, but when you have that, you're searching for that adrenaline, you're searching for that rush. It's,

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:50

uh,

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:51

you know,

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:53

it's there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:54

It's there. Anytime you want it. And then that one time that you win, everything's validated, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:00

Yeah, everything. Let's talk about that sports bar that you got your, so you came from New Jersey, right? You came down to, and then you pick up the story. What part of Florida and how did that

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:13

all

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:14

go?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:14

I always wanted to be a New Jersey State Trooper. That was my dream. So I applied, took a year process. did the oral interview and they sent me a letter saying that the state was broke right now and they weren't going to have a class. It was very unfortunate for me, even though I had been accepted. And I said, oh, what am I going to do now? And my partner that I worked out at the gym with, he said, I'm going down to West Palm Beach, Florida. I'm taking my family and I'm opening up a sports bar and I'm looking for a partner. Are you interested? So I went to my father and I said, dad, can I borrow$30,000? I will pay you back$30,000. I promise.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:54

He goes, you know what, son? I'll take a chance. You know, he wanted to know what my plan was. So we went down. We took a ride one day. We found a building on a really busy intersection that was out of business. Signed a lease three days later. I had been a bartender, but I had never been in business before. You know, never ran a bar. I was 26 years old and had a 5 a.m. sports bar. And it... you know, worked out pretty well. It's a tough business to be in, but we had a 12 year run.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:27

And then the business was starting to go down a little bit. And because of all the big name bars around, you know, we're eating up all the competition and, and then Walgreens came along and said, we want your property. I said, amen. Where do I sign? How

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:45

many bars can claim that they sold to Walgreens?

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:49

Yeah. Well, they, It's funny, they wanted four parcels. They wanted us, they wanted a gas station, they wanted a church, and there was a little part of a strip mall. So they had to wait two and a half years for all of these places to come together and agree.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:03

You know, and by that time we did that. So when I, after I sold that, I just kind of got into buying up some real estate and doing that thing. And then 2015, I go out and play in the World Series and boom, changed my life.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:18

Pivotal point of life. That's it. That's what we like to talk about. All right. Baseball is where you're at now. Baseball, you have some other exciting news, some other things you're doing now. So take us into your world.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:32

Well, when I owned my bar, I stopped playing baseball for about 15 years. And I'm coaching Pop Warner football and a guy comes running up to me. His name is Joe Gray. He pitched in the major leagues. And he said, some guy told me that you used to be a pitcher in He said, we play 45 and over baseball. And I didn't even know that they did that. And he said, we have a tournament in two weeks. Come to practice on Sunday. I go, I haven't played in years. He goes, just show up. I showed up. I went out and threw. Felt like I was alive again. Felt

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:06

like I

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:06

was where I belonged. Went to the tournament in Fort Myers with a bunch of great guys. And this was 15 years ago, and I haven't turned back since. And You know, I'm playing with a lot of ex-major leaguers,

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:19

a

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:19

lot of guys, a lot of great athletes. So I went from 45 and over to 50 and over and then 55 and over. So I just turned 60. So our team won the 60 and over world championship out in Phoenix last year, me and Eddie Fuller on the same

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:36

team.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:37

And I was fortunate enough that the owner of our team, Steve Wolf, who was just an amazing guy, He invited me and Eddie and 11 other guys to go to Taipei, Taiwan in May for the World Master Games, 54 and over Masters Games. Teams from Japan, China, Taiwan, Canada, all over the world. I've never been to Asia. I think it's just an incredible opportunity to go play baseball with people from all over the world at 61

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:11

years old. Right. That's incredible. Whoever knew. What's the motivation for somebody to own a 55 and older baseball team? Is there sponsorship involved? He

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:24

is so giving and so generous. He's been very successful in his life. He was an entrepreneur from Boston. He loves the game of baseball. I just think he really likes helping people and You know, he takes care of stuff and, you know, I'll get your flight. And he's paying for everybody to go out to, you know, to Taiwan. And it's just a blessing that he thought of me to, you know, be one of the guys to go out there. I think he just enjoys the camaraderie, running a baseball team, being around the guys. And I'm just blessed that I'm on his team and that he thinks enough of me to, you know, to ask me to go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:12

And we play all over the place. We play in Phoenix. We play in Vegas. We play here in West Palm. I go up to Jersey in the summer. Last year, I played in a 25 and over league. And I'm sitting there going out to the mound. Guy was 50 years old with gray hair. And these guys that don't know me, they're looking at me like, you know, this guy's old enough to be my father. And he's pitching against us. That's awesome. But that's where my motivation comes. I think age is just a number. If you put the work in and you can stay healthy, you can compete with anybody.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:47

Sure. Yeah. This has been awesome. Last question for you. So what I love about your story is you made it work. And you made it work in a way that is not necessarily... maybe what they teach at university, go to school, come out, get a great job, work at that job for 30 years, retire, right? You have found a way to make it all work. And I just wanna hear some encouragement for the younger generation, for could even be the person out there who's just struggling to find a way, maybe one side, one side of their brains telling them, go get a steady job. The other side's like, I want to take a little bit of a risk. What would you suggest to people?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:42

For me, just for me personally, what I try to tell anybody that asks or that I talk to is to do what you love. And if you do what you love, it's easy. You and I were joking earlier before we went on, and I said, I couldn't change a flat tire if my life depended on it. I know nothing about putting things together.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:08

If

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:10

I was working in an auto parts store, I would be miserable. I'm clueless. I don't know anything about it. I commend the people that can build a house from scratch or do all that kind of stuff and do electrical work. That's not me. It's never been me. I've always had a passion for sports and competing. And I did what I love being, having a sports bar. I'm doing what I love playing baseball. I coached football for 15 years. I love working with young men and making them better and getting the best out of them. And I would just say, whatever you're going to do, do it full speed and put everything you have into it. And, and, you know usually it'll work out pretty good for you because i did what i how many guys can say they never punched a clock in their life never had a nine to five job in their life and have done with have done their whole life what they love doing yeah you know and i wake up every day and when's my next baseball tournament when you know when's the next things i everything i'm doing i i love

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:15

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:15

and um i know how fortunate i am i'm not you know stupid i'd be I've gotten very fortunate to win that tournament and to be able to live the life that I'm living. Do what you love and chase your dreams. Don't let anybody tell you you can't. Outwork the other guy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:32

That's awesome. Love it. This has been so fun. I learned so much here today.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:44

I appreciate it. I've seen your podcast with Eddie and I think it's amazing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:51

Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:51

thank you. You know, I don't think that my story is as interesting as most of the other people that you're on here with, but hey, if anybody didn't know about poker or any of that stuff and, you know, they kind of get... a little chuckle out of it, then we did our job, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:08

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. They could get a nugget of information, whatever it is. It could be the encouragement. You know, a lot of people are sitting at home. I love mentoring younger men as well. And they're being told at home that they can't, that they're not old enough. They're too young to take that bigger risks. So, you know, it's these kinds of stories that can maybe tell somebody like, hey, here's a guy who figured out how to make money in poker. And I want to do, that for whatever it is, repairing boats on a lake, I don't know. Right. This could be the thing that pushes them over the edge to go, you know what, I'm going to go do it now.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:44

100%. Every baseball tournament I go to, I may not win, but I know that nobody's going to prepare better than me before that tournament. Nobody's going to work harder. Yeah. And, you know, if you stick by that, usually at the end of the day, good things happen.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:02

Yep. Awesome. I'm

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:03

blessed that you had me on, Jeff. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:06

Yeah, I'm so thankful you took the time and told your story. It'll be out on all, like I said, all the major podcast platforms. It'll be on YouTube as well. So thanks for being here. If you were here, I would shake your hand, but I'm going to give you a virtual handshake. And thank you again for coming on.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:25

And I thank you for reaching out to me and for letting me be part of your show. And I wish you All the luck in the world. And from what I've seen, you're really doing something special yourself right over there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:38

Yeah. It's exciting. I'm doing what you said to do. Do what you love. And

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:43

listen, maybe you can have a bracelet someday. You know what I mean? Yeah. Take baby steps. You never know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:49

I love it, man. Thanks. Thanks a million. Have a great day. Hey, thank you. Take

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:53

care.