All language subtitles for For.Love.or.Money.A.Poker.Documentary.2019.1080p.WEB-DL.x264-NTG

I started playing poker when I was seventeen.

Me and my friends, we were really bored one day.

We were hanging out at my house.
And my mom is like a huge bargain shopper,

and she just loves to buy random stuff
that's on sale and she'll just throw it

in the closet and then every now and
then when someone's birthday, or whatever,

she'll just gift it to them.

So we were just doing nothing at home,
and we went through the closet,

and we found poker for dummies.

And it had all the chips, all the cards,
all the rules,

everything you needed to start playing.

and ever since then we never stopped playing.

My mindset was
never set on a job or a profession.

I came here I met the woman that became my wife.

And then I got introduced by poker by, um...

osmosis.

When I first heard about
professional poker that there even was

such a thing, and I heard about in the
early 80s, and right away I knew I wanted

to do that. And I moved to California
because they had the best games in the

world back then.

They had these public
poker rooms that-- they didn't have

craps, slots, roulette..

Nothing like that.
It was almost like a bridge club.

I just couldn't stop playing.
My brother taught it to me. I would play

every day. I'd practice by myself. I would
just deal, like, two random hands, and, like,

flip them over, and just, like, do the
run out.

You know, I just-- I just loved everything about it.

I was about nine years old,
and my dad sat me and my

seven-year-old brother down, and we
played five-card draw for pennies.

Couldn't even tell you if I won.

We had no clue
about pot odds. But I knew a full house

beat a straight, and flush beat, you know,
trips, and all those kinds of things.

I started sneaking into casinos when I
was eighteen-- nineteen. Playing three six

or if I was really daring playing four
eight. You know. And then we would run up

a couple hundred bucks and thought I was
just rolling in the dough.

When I started playing poker I was playing, like,
$5 sit- n- goes online.

I was playing, like, the $3.30, 40 K
guaranteed rebuy on PokerStars.

[Rocco] Back then you could build a thousand
play chips to a million on PokerStars.

And I sold those for $10,
me and my brother.

We took that $10
and built it up to $100, and...

When we got to a hundred he's like, "I
don't want to do this anymore, like, let's

split our money and you go your way, I go
my way." And maybe by the time I was in

twelfth grade I had built that $50 to
around like thirty, forty thousand dollars.

So I-- I had pretty decent success
playing online poker when I was in high school.

That was probably like around
2011... and then online poker I went out!

My name is Scott Blumstein.

I'm from Morristown, New Jersey..

and currently I live in Las Vegas, Nevada.

My love a cards came from my grandmother actually.

I remember being a kid playing Crazy
Eights ...

and old maiden games like that with her, so.

Me and my family used to
drive down to Florida to visit my grandmother.

On the way down we would
stay in hotels, and one night we got

lucky and got a special room with uh--

It had two TVs.

I was lucky enough to get my own
television.

And came across the 2004
World Series of Poker Main Event on television.

I just remember watching that--
that whole thing in that hotel room and

that's just a memory I have.

When I first landed Vegas it's awesome.

The first thing you see is the slots, and you

hear the sounds, and you know you're in Vegas,
and you see the welcome to Las Vegas sign.

There's definitely nostalgia...
there's excitement.

a lot of money is is won in
the Rio. A lot of cool people

you meet in the Rio.

So I get really excited once
I land in Vegas.

My name is Chris Leong.

I'm a professional poker player from New York City,

and I'm splitting time between New
York City and Las Vegas.

So the WSOP is once a year in Vegas.

For every tournament you win at the WSOP, a bracelet is awarded.

I would say most
professional and amateur poker

players goals are to win at least one
bracelet in their lifetime.

It's really hard to do and the best
players in the world show up to the WSOP

every year so it makes it that much
harder to win one.

But when you do win one it's a...

it's a real prize.

If I won a bracelet I would be really
happy. I have been working really hard to

win one for a long time, and I've made
one final table and didn't get that close.

I've only had one winning summer
in Vegas so there's definitely pressure on

me to do well this year.

How many summers
is this for you?

Six or seven.

Yeeee!

I would like to say I'm gonna win one
bracelet this year, but if I won like

six or seven I wouldn't be surprised.

I'm staying at the Meridian.

It's my favorite place to stay.

The location is amazing.
There's always tons of poker players and

a lot of good friends staying here.

[Stan] Yo!

Yo!

So I'm rooming with Stan Lee.

What the fuck is good kid?

In the Vegas!

My name is Stanley Lee.

I'm from West Hartford, Connecticut.

I moved to Vegas about a year ago from Costa Rica.

I'm playing a little uh...

no rathole.

Oh my God. Are you serious?

Yeah why not?
I got heaps of money on here.

So, why not fuck around?

So I met Stan at Foxwoods years ago and
he's definitely one of the older, more

mature, poker players that I've met in
the scene. And in previous years I've

been rooming with a lot of younger poker
players so I thought it would be cool to

try to be a little mature this summer,
and hopefully it will rub off on me a little bit.

Fuck! You guys are eating burgers,
making me hungry.

I was trying to eat healthy.

I asked you. I asked you.

I like-

I was healthy,
real healthy today.

I'm hella healthy-

I had two smoothies-

Can you take me to the gym tomorrow?

And then I ate eggs and bacon and avacado.

You gonna teach me how to get abs tomorrow?

Let's do it.

At this moment I feel
very excited about poker.

I just recently had my second biggest score, and
now it's WSOP where I know I could

turn a little bit of money into a lot.

My goals don't really differ from the years before.

It's win a bracelet and
have a million-dollar score, which I

still have not had, but I've gotten very
close so I know it's only a matter of time.

The worst thing that could go wrong
this summer is that I do not have a

cash and I lose 30 to 40 K, but really
everything would be okay.

I'm just ready to have fun and stack people.

Tournaments or cash, and why?

The fact that in a tournament you sit down with the same amount of people, everybody's the same.

It's the most democratic war ever.

Nobody's better than anybody else.

Personally, tournaments are more fun to
play because once you're in, you're in.

There's no question about when should I
quit? By how much I'm up?

You have to play to the end.

Tournaments have a super high
variance. No matter how good you are or

how bad you are, you're gonna have a
super high variance and you're

gonna have a lot of swings.

If you have the bankroll to sustain
that, and everybody thinks they do...

if you have the huge
bankroll to sustain that, then

by all means go ahead but-

You can grind out
cash and have consistent winning weeks and

months, and stuff like that. With tournaments
it's a lot more of a...

kind of like a positive EV lottery ticket in a
lot of ways.

If you play a tournament and
you win a tournament...

You have a big income..
big prize. And maybe if you play

the WSOP you get a bracelet and your
name will be in the Hall of Fame, okay.

That's for the fame. I play poker
tournaments for the fame but I play cash

because of the money.

Cash game players
are a little bit different than

tournament players where.. they're a
little bit more dependent on themselves.

Where tournament players are probably
more of the gamblers types, more of the

degenerate types where they take shots,
they want to hit the big score.

I've noticed a big difference in the
personalities between people who

approach poker and a cash game sense and
people that do with tournaments.

Which is interesting.

Tournament's take a piece of your soul,
right?

When you buy in-- when you buy in you buy in
with your cash then you

buy in with a little piece, a little
sliver of your soul that goes away and

it just kind of eats at you.

But after an couple
of years it adds up and you

realize that it's good chunk of you is
now through a buy-in window.

Amen!

My name is Asher Conniff.

I'm from Brooklyn New York, born
and raised, and I'm a professional poker player

for a good six seven years now.

So to start that series they have event one,

which is like in all poker series the
huge event.

Kind of like a low buy in, high guarantee.

Somehow I won the tournament...

outright for two hundred and ten thousand
dollars, or something like that.

No matter-- no matter how good you are at poker,
the amound of luck involved to win that size

field with a quicker structure and all
that is ridiculous.

So, that was like kind of my breakout

and life was really good...
obviously.

And kind of the big thing in

my life at that point was that I had
this huge family trip planned to Europe.

And I was going with my mom and my
sister and it was a big deal. We were going to

Ireland and all these different places,
five or six different places.

So this was the Sunday before that, and Sunday
is, like, the big online poker day

and everyone plays it.

So I go to sign up for
the $1000 tournament...

and I sign up, and as soon as I sit down I'm
like, "Wait. I only have three thousand chips like"...

For $1,000 buying online
tournament you would-

you would expect to get more chips than that.

So I go look up at the lobby

and I've accidentally bought in for the
$1500 satellite to the $15,000 event.

And I had just won that event so, like,
obviously financially I was doing fairly

well but still I kind of flip out right
away and I'm in this room with all this

people and I'm like, "Oh you know, shit I
just bought into this fucking $1500

satellite for this event that I can't
play. What do I do?"

So I start to play and I win the seat.

So I call my mom, you know, and I'm hoping

that there's not too much of like a boy
cries wolf thing here we're like...

"Oh, of course he's trying to play a poker
tournament and not go on this trip,"

but you know.

We're talking and we're going back
and forth, and then there's this one night...

where she calls me. And she's like,
"Look I had a dream last night, and like you

should play. Like, you're supposed to play
the tournament. Like, I just think it's

the right thing to do. Like, you won the
seat for a reason. Like, this is all

happening for a reason. You just won two
hundred thousand dollars.

You can book another flight."

So I'm like, "Okay", yeah
that's pretty crazy. So I do that.

And, you know, it's a fifteen thousand
dollar buy in, by far

the biggest buy in I had played.

I think $3,500 was the biggest
before that.

You know, day one, and like

doing really well. I' have like four times what
I started with. Day two, I have like three

times that. It really was just this
ridiculous run where like I was never

low on chips, I was never in a bad spot,
and come four days I'm at the final table

and I'm second and chips, and you
know it's uh...

it's this weir-
it was this weird feeling of calm.

It just wasn't bothering
me and the final table was over in less

than 100 hands, and I won the WPT
championship for like nine hundred and

seventy three thousand dollars or
something like that.

And it just kind of all happened--

It was like this crazy
storybook and it all started with me

legitimately miss clicking into the
wrong tournament. Like that's how it happened.

Yeah, it was this huge mistake
that turned into this like massively

life changing moment.

About one-- one point one eight million in two weeks.

Which was, yeah..

It's crazy to even to say right now, you know.
It's so much money.

Walking into the Rio for the first time is fun.

Since this is like my seventh or

eighth summer, it's almost like summer
camp. See a lot of the same faces

and I know where everything is.

So my schedule this summer I created a package.

It's roughly $30,000 worth of tournaments.

In previous summers I played maybe 60 to 70 thousand
dollars worth of tournaments,

and I would mostly just fire away in all the best
tournaments that I really wanted to play,

and I ended up just losing lots of money.
So now we're gonna actually grind

really hard to summer and try to make
some smart plays.

My schedule for this summer is
very relaxed.

I am not like normal poker players

who have a whole set schedule.

I play as I feel.

If I'm feeling good that morning,

I'll play. If I think my body
needs a day off I need to focus on

healthy things, I'll do that. I don't
force myself to play anything where I

don't think I'm at the right state
of mind.

No I didn't, I didn't view poker as a way
to get out. I viewed poker as

just something fun to do.

I didn't treat it as
like a way to make money until I kind of

started to happen, and then I realized
all right now I should have

focused on it more.

I think it's the reading of people and
just the mind part of the game.

Just strategy games are like really
cool to me.

I see it as like a little bit

of a thrill seek as getting in a
pot and you know hitting a set or

running a huge bluff and getting it
through.

I love this game, I love poker.

I loved poker when I was 14 years old
and I still love poker right now.

You know in the real world I don't take
advantage of people

I don't exploit their weaknesses...

and this is kind of a
place where you can do that.

It's like you can get your evil villain out in poker and
you can live your normal life.

It's never the same.

And thats, I think that's wha-

what we all love about poker is that
that flow of information is never, no

matter how many hands you play, no matter
how many millions of hands you've logged

online and live. That flow of information
is never the same as the one before.

And I find that interesting.

Yesterday I spend twelve
hours at a table. I met everyone, people

from Colorado, Illinois, New York,
Sweden, you know and you share your

feelings and your stuff with people you
never met before but looks like they are

friends forever because you spend hours
with them.

That's kind of what brought me to poker was the characters.

Because at the end of the day it's about

entertainment and that's you know when
you're watching poker on TV you want to

be entertained and just that whole old school generation watching the coverages

the final tables. How they acted when
they won. How they acted when they lost.

All that stuff just led to me just like
enjoying what poker was

as far as the people.

You know, I mean it's pretty cliché but
people say you got to like what you do and

and I couldn't really find something
I love doing realistically so poker just

kind of was a thing that appealed to me.
I knew people, there were people out

there doing it for a living and just
that it was possible and so I think you

know I convinced myself that if you
happen to become successful at this then

maybe you won't have to work a job you
don't want to do so I just decided to

play poker as opposed to work a desk job.

Some friends were like what- what are you
gonna do if it doesn't work? You know

basically I said well I'll just come
back home, and what I learned very early

on is that as long as you have a sense
that you can always go back to what you did,

it makes it very easy to go on and
try new things and what you end up

finding is that you never really go back.
Because you find that same comfort at

the next level at the next thing
that you do.

It just took me a while to fully go with
poker. Like I've liked poker since I was

a teenager but I didn't play full time
till I was 24.

You know I was like you know if I'm
gonna do it, I really got to do it.

So I left, I travelled full time, and here we
are another summer in Vegas.

I would say things almost never go as
planned in poker.

One of my favorite pieces of advice to give people

is to not have expectations.

The added expectation puts pressure

on things and when you
go into things with no pressure on yourself

that's usually when you are going to show the results.

Jinxed myself.

Nah.

Thats, thats the bad way to look at it.

Sure.

I like to think that I'm very realistic
with myself, um...

I'm very hard on myself.

Whenever I lose, or whenever I win, I like
to think about what just happened,

why it happened, how can I make that happen
again, or if it was a bad thing, how can I

prevent that from happening? And yeah,
just being realistic and just being

willing to put the time into it. A lot of
people play poker and then they lose, or

they win, and they just walk away and
they don't think about what just happened.

I busted like four-
three or four levels from the money.

They're probably in there soon.

When you first get knocked out
of a tournament.

The feeling is of disappointment and
also regret, maybe by the way that I

played the hand that caused me to lose
the tournament. So the first thing I'm

doing is analyzing the hand trying to
think of ways that could have played

that hand better to have a
better outcome.

And then I'll usually be pissed,
and I'll smoke a blunt and feel better.

Is poker gambling?

Poker is absolutely gambling, definitely.

No. not at all, and
I've gotten in arguments with people

over this, and poker is so far away from
gambling for me.

This game give me more

power because it's not just a lucky game,
is a game of skills. You can use

psychology. You can use mathematic and
you can play people.

Anyone who says that

they don't like gambling and they play
poker is just lying because at the end

of the day when the cards are on their
backs it's just gambling. I don't care

how good you got it in it really just
doesn't matter because there's a chance

you can lose and anytime there's a
chance you can lose it's called game so-

So the question is poker gambling comes
up all the time and as a writer and

philosopher I look at any question like
that comes down to one thing.

Gambling is a word.

Words have different meanings for
different people at different times.

The way it typically gets answered is if you
look up in the dictionary, there's one

definition of gambling that says to wager
money at unfavorable odds.

So by that definition, playing poker for living is
absolutely not gambling.

Now another definition of gambling is

just the simple, you
know wagering money, at all.

Well then of course it is.

So the less you manage your
bankroll is the more you're gambling.

Those people that like manage their

bankroll perfectly, the gambling and the
variance is like a lot removed but when

you're playing with too much of your
money, then it becomes a lot more of a

gamble. Anything could happen
over like a month, a year, even a few years.

Like there's a lot of like ups and
downs in the game.

It's very hard to like make a lot of
money unless you do gamble, and put

yourself in the situation to like have a
good score. So you have to exercise a lot

of risk in those situations. So it's
definitely gambling, for sure.

What's important to remember

is that poker is a reciprocal game.

Where the same number of

times where you have four kings and I
have aces full of kings, I'm gonna have

four kings when you have aces full of kings.

So all the money that I win with my four

kings against your aces full of kings goes
back and forth. And the reason it goes

back and forth is because we both will
not play either side of that situation

any differently from the other person.

Where the real money comes from in poker

is where you will play your hand
differently than I would have played it

in the same situation.

So the only reason a
person wins money and another person

doesn't win money, is they make better
decisions in the same situation compared

to the people that are playing against.

Um, and to put it more simply when if you

want to win at poker, you play bad
players.

The tournament I'm looking forward to
the most is the Milly Maker.

I have gotten deep in it four years in a row,
with a top 50 finish, with one final table,

which I got a ninth place in that
tournament.

In the Milly Maker it usually has a
field between 8,000 and 7,000 people.

You start off with 7,000 chips so it's
like a normal $1,500.

25k already. Shitting on these hoes.

[Chapo] What you got, like 40?

25.

Just sat down.

You know how we do.

You are the best.

Shinning, always climbing.

Stackin never slackin.

How was last night?

My support system is mainly players and

I'd say my mother. My mom's always there
for me. I have a bunch of good friends

back home in Connecticut also.

But also a
lot of friends that I've lived with in

Costa Rica they're all poker players
from all around Canada and United States.

I'd say that we have a very small
tight-knit group where we all discuss

hands, and talk about our lives, females.

Whatever is on our minds.

It depends, on what's going on.
My family likes to support me

when I'm doing well.

When I'm not doing well
they're the first ones to say, "go get a job".

My friends are always behind me at
all times, and I know a lot of good poker

players so I'm lucky to have that
support system behind me. But, uh yeah, it's

it's really-- it's really tough and if you
don't have the support of people around

you I don't really know you can make it
in this game.

Guy raises cutoff, good aggressive reg
calls button, and then the small behind

tanks for about two minutes and makes
the call. I look down in the big blind

with pocket sixes with about thirty five
big blinds. I'm playing this tournament

just to try to win! I don't really care
about cashing for forty or fifty

thousand dollars. I want
that million! I've gotten close before!

So, I'm already assuming the
original raiser is gonna fold because he's

been opening a lot. I'm assuming the
button has a decent hand like suited

connectors, maybe queen- jack suited.
Hands where I think he's most likely

gonna fold to my thirty five bb reshove.

And I automatically think the small

blind is gonna fold because he took so
long to call.

So, I tank for about a minute and shove in
my thirty five big blinds.

The original raiser instantly folds,

and the guy on the
button snap put it in.

Small blind folds.

And the button, who called, flips over ace
queen. So at this point I'm ahead with a

lot of dead money in the pot, and I'm
pretty excited because if I win this pot

I'll have a really nice stack with forty
people left to win a million dollars.

But... I lost that hand and I was out of
the tournament. So it's all good.

[dealer] 47th this year.

[Stan's friend] What, 47th this year?

Yeah, and then like, 30th... 10th... 20th.

Jesus Christ!

Yeah.

Thats funny.

We got fans now!

One decision changes everything, huh?

Mmmhum.

I could've got in the
way better spot.

Yes. A lot of regret...

A lot of regret.

Not much you can do though. I'm still young,
rich, black, and beautiful.

It'll come.

Um...ten years ago

poker was a lot easier to make a living
in because nobody was good.

Nobody, had any idea.

Me included.

I thought, we all
thought, we were good ten years ago...

not so much.

In 1991, poker came
to Atlantic City, at the Taj Mahal.

And players were flocking there
from California, pros, you know it's like

a giant feeding frenzy. The Sharks just
come in because all of a sudden you've

got this enormous population of people
playing poker, in one place, that have no

idea what they're doing.

And then, what
happens is, the games get tougher from

that second on because two things happen.

The bad players gets better, okay, or they

just quit the game altogether.

Nowadays,
you have all these tools and all these--

all these resources, at your disposal. You
can look up online videos. You can look

up training videos. You can look up all
these hand charts, and all these

companies that are designed to teach
people that you can be a part of. You can

get a coach. You can-- ten years ago nobody
had a coach.

There's like, three guys, that had coaches.

In some sense, people
say this recked the game of poker.

Because all of a sudden you had guys
that were twenty years old, and there

learning how to fold before the flop, and
they're learning stuff, like, merging

ranges and all this stuff. You got guys
that are playing-- that used to play 5/10

no- limit online are playing 1/2.

It's hard as hell...

and I've kind of known that...

And it's easy as hell at the same time.

What,
to be a poker player you need everything.

You need the money. You need
the skills. You need the patience.

You don't have to tilt.

Don't start to play
poker with no money!

If I were to give someone
advice on like what they should do to,

like, be a successful poker player. Then
it would be to, like, totally mash,

like, those solvers. And totally
understand the theory behind the game.

And just study people's games that are
better than you. And try to learn from

other people's mistakes, like, rather from
your own.

One thing that's really become

a big topic in poker these days, among
young professionals, is mind and body.

I already have advantages to average
people. The average guy that maybe have a

smoking problem, relationship problem,
alcohol problem.

I do not have that problem.

I do yoga. I'm a vegan. I tried
the care or myself so that myself--

my body take care of, you know, a along
14 hours session of poker.

Discipline. Hard work. A passion for the game, like,
there's so many ups and downs in this

game man. Like, I've had a few friends who
came and gone in poker...

...and...

they love playing every day.

They are like,
"Oh, I get to play. I get to go here.

Hang out at the beach. Go play when I want".

And we go play, and they're not winning, and
they get upset, and I'm like...

"Go watch this video.

Let's go over these hands." They are like,
"Oh, I don't want to, like, work in poker,

study in poker". It's like if you think
this is fucking work then you have not

worked in the real world. Like, are you
kidding me? Like, when people used to say

that and like, "Oh, I have to do that?"
I'm like, "Jesus Christ".

Like, all the different jobs I used to do.

I have no problem watching
videos going over hands every day.

Like, let's go!

Like, it's still a job, right?...

You know, anytime you have a job

there needs to be
someone to hold you accountable. So...

If you're your own boss, and you're making
sure that you're working, you're treating

it like a job, then, um...

that's how you become
successful.

[floorman announcing]

The funny thing is, like, it doesn't
matter how long you've been playing

poker, like, a really long downswing can
make you question anything but you got

to remember that there's-- there is math in
this game. And if you're playing well and

you're putting in the volume, you're
gonna show results eventually. And you

just gotta-- gotta stick it out and show
them the heart-- all the heart you have

So Liam HE opens under the gun.

[announcer 1]
Ew, Liam here with pair aces.

I had ace king, with the king of hearts.

-[announcer 1] Chris--Wow!
-[announcer 2] Cooler

Cooler time!

The other stacks at the table were Rafa, who at the
chip lead, and tons of chips...

and he was an amateur.

And..

Yevgeniy and Joe had
like sub 15 bigs. So, I figured I could

induce some shoves from Joe and
Yevgeniy.

[announcer 1] Really?
Wow, he's just gonna flat call! Really!?

[announcer 2]
No way?!

[announcer 3]
How good.

-Oh my God!
-He just flatted?

Yeah he just flatted.

-Liam has like sub 20 blinds--
-I don't-- i don't-- see I don't--

What is going on in this tournament!?

Liam had been playing rather tight.
So, if I three bet him, and he had a hand

that I had beat... that he would just fold.

The flop came
nine, seven, three, with two hearts.

I flatted a C-bet.

The turn came of five
of hearts, completing a flush.

[announcer 2] Sick. I mean he's--

he's fading it.

-He's fading the--
-[announcer 1] He's gonna end up soul reading

them in this hand so hard.

[Chris] And on the river...

it paired the
board an off suite seven.

And...

...he...

...bet...

[announcer 1] I think he--

[announcer 2] Oh, he bet so small though...

-Oh no, no he didn't. He bet seven fifty--
-No he bet one third pot. You're right... He bet small.

Yeah, he did.

Yeah, I mean...

I think it's actually a call cause
he bet so small. If he had bet, like--

[announcer 1] Wow!

[announcer 3] What a boss, dude, I--

Like, theres nobody that doesn't double up--

[announcer 1] What the hell!?

[announcer 3]
Or at least stab at at it at some part--

like you turn equity
and like, I don't know ...I--

Oh. In poker life the decision it's the must.

If you do the bad decision,
you lost everything.

You can lose your bankroll.

Focusing on your decision
rather than the outcome is probably

the most important thing.

Removing your emotions from, like, the

results of, like, what happens in that
hand or.. that day...

or even that week or month or year.

You only have control over
one of those two things.

So why focus on something
you have no control over?

you only have control over
the decisions you make.

[announcer] It's a little bit suspicious of
a bet but it's tough for Dan just to call

with queen-high.

[announcer 2]
Try telling that to Dan Coleman!

He casually deposits 42 thousand
in the middle...

and shows Queen Jack over
Queen Ten! That's playing the game.

Trying to think with like a more logical brain

and not an emotional side of your brain

is, like, kind of what the best players
have been able to do.

And that comes from, like,

maybe conquering their own fears
than their own self, you know?

If you realize that making good decisions
ultimately in the long term will lead to

good results, you can stick to your A-
Game. It's the players that--

Uh, reacts...

to what happens to them who go on tilt
and go under their B- Game.

We spoke on dinner

me and my-- a couple of my friends and...

We were talking about how,
you know, don't do anything stupid.

Like, just kind of relax and--
and-- So I-- I 5 bet King Jack. I get called

by Ace King and I go over the rail and I
go...

"Change of plans"!

When I first started playing poker... it's
a lot more of like an emotionally based

like perception, like...

You win... You feel great.
You lose... You feel bad. And now I

think as I've matured as a person, just
be the best that you could be in like

any given situation rather than focus on
the other things.

If the result was I got

a hundredth displace or sixtieth place or
min cached or, you know,

God forbid bubble or whatever...

As long as I went out and
played my best I would have been able to

hold my head high, and moved on
to the next tournament

cause that's really all you can do.

There's nothing else to it

[cashier] How are you?

[player] Good.

Twenties unfortunatley.

[cashier] and your player's card, ok?..

And your id.

[Stan] Okay, I just bought into the
10k main event.

I'm feeling feelings of excitement...

A little bit of worry. I'm worried that I
might make a mistake and look like an idiot.

Obviously very excited because...

first place is over eight million dollars. So,
that's gonna generate a lot of

excitement in anyone who is playing the
tournament. Even people who are watching

the tournament TV feel the excitement.

[cashier] Ok... there you go.

Good luck to you!

[player] Thank you.

Money is especially important in poker
because it funds your buy ins. It funds your travel.

It funds everything. So... you have
to have a decent bankroll and to be able

to play a ten thousand or a five
thousand dollar tournament. So, money is

basically energy. We use this in
everyday life.

Money is the catalyst to win a tournament.

Without money you can't do
nothing. So, you have to have a good base

or a good backer or a good bankroll to
play.

First poker bankroll?

Uh, well I think it took about...

14 first poker bank rolls
when I was-- when I was first starting.

I was just-- I had like a weekend off from
work. I was like. "let's go play this tournament".

And I hit! And I was like, "holy shit"!
And like my head was gas. I was like, "you

know something", I was like, "that's it
we're gonna do this. I'm good and everything.

Actually, I started playing
full time like a month or two later.

Actually, like, left my job. I was like, "I
want to do this".

My starting bankroll was 50 grand.

Not too big but just to start.

Well, this is funny. Bankroll. We just
talked about this.

A lot of my friends will ask me,
"How much do I need for poker bankroll"?

And the first thing I'll ask
them is, "Well, are you winning?"

And they'll say, "Well, no. Not yet."
And so my response is...

"Well you don't need a bankroll. You need a budget."

There's two reasons to have a fat
bankroll.

It isn't just to keep from
running out of money.

It's to keep from
having the fear of running out of money.

Because once you're in that mindset
where you're afraid that you might run out...

that affects your play.

I take whatever the
theoretically determined number is..

and double that.

For my clients,
and for me, to really feel safe.

I've always had an aspiration to play
bigger buy ins. I've always been driven

by the idea of, like, competing against
the best players. That's more of, like,

my driving force in poker.

So, I would gamble
and put myself in situations where I was

playing very big tournaments with not
enough money.

The scariest part of being

a professional poker player for me
during the first 10 years or so

was just running out of money.

You know...going broke.

You know, my bankroll is never more than

about fifty thousand. Which meant I was
never more than a couple bad months away

from being broke.

Everyone goes broke in
poker. You just do. It's inevitable.

Especially if you're taking shots.

You know you got
to go broke about--

about a hundred times before
you make it stick.

When you go broke it's
self-destruction.

Like, basically like you distracted yourself.

Like, you put yourself into a situation

where you were playing with too much
money that.. variance is gonna overtake you

and eventually break you in most
situations.

You come up on a decent amount money,

like, ten twenty thousand.
For me personally, like, back then, like, I

would just spend it like I was a
millionaire. And like, I would buy

everything, like, you know, my dad has a--
he's a good wealthy man and like I would spend

more money than him on shit. Like, I would
go buy myself a more expensive dinner

than he would and just-- kind of just
putting yourself in a situation where,

like, you think that money is
never-ending...

And then eventually it ends pretty
quickly, like, when you have that mindset.

I was even one of those people
who would win something early

and I would be like,
"Oh. Fucking great. I'm gonna play this 1k...

I'm gonna smash all these guys.

I was probably the
worst player in the game.

I'm just spewing money into poker.
I'm playing higher stakes.

I'm spewing off in blackjack...

some clubs...

some other clubs.

The day I woke up of the main event I
felt really good. I had taken at least

three to four days off to mentally
prepare myself for the long journey.

The main event is one
bigger buy in tournaments of the year.

It's the best value tournament
of the year.

There's no tournament
out there with a buy-in under 100k

where you can get paid over-- over
eight point eight million dollars.

It's just not gonna happen.

People come from all over the world
to play this tournament.

Rich people, poor people...
there are like people who are on

their deathbed willing to spend their
last ten thousand dollars to make sure

that they have this experience. And a lot
of these people they're not willing to

bust on a silly hand.

They're going to
wait for the nuts to make sure that

they stay in the tournament.

So, when I get to
the river in this spot and-- and--

where most of our chips are already in
the pot. If I bet here he's never

bluffing, ever. And he would only call
with the second nuts or worse,

and shove the stone-cold nuts.

My name is Spencer Uniss and I'm from
Boulder Colorado.

Luck is something I strongly
believe in.

Have you honestly-- have you
honestly, though, never heard the real story?

Alright this is-- Alright. So, um--

There was a tournament up
in Blackhawk, Colorado,

which is my local casino. And uh, they
had a World Series of Poker circuit event.

I show up on day two and we're getting
near the money, and I get moved...

next to Ryan Riess, he's to my left.

And this whole time I'm like,
"Who is this guy? He-- he, like,

knows what I have. He's just grinding,
He's very patient. And he's, you know, very young.

But that's-- that's how I met him,
and flash-forward to the 2013

World Series of Poker.

You know, so I walked up to
him, and started a conversation. Asked him

if he was selling any action, and he said,
"No. I don't sell any action,

but I might for the main event."

When we got to the main event time I

shot him a text on Facebook because I
didn't have his phone number we weren't,

like, good friends. So I mean I bought one
percent of about five people,

two percent of another player
that I had confidence in...

And then I bought
five percent of Ryan Riess.

And I remember specifically driving over
with my brother to the Rio when he's

sitting down at day one. And I look at
my brother and I said,

"This is the guy whose
gonna win the main event.

He's the Dark Horse.
That's why I took the biggest piece.

So you know, if you want to throw a
little bit on top, you should do it."

And so my brother gave me, you know, $50.
And so he had a little micro stake in my stake,

which was which is pretty cool as
well.

I ended up busting on day two early on.

So after that, you know, I go home
home just like everyone else.

Pretty-- pretty sad and pissed off
that I lost $10,000.

And um, you know, two three days later

I see online that Ryan's making a
run at it.

So I'm with a couple friends
on the couch, you know...

every-- every day, you know,
it's getting closer and closer.

We're hitting that refresh button as quick
as possible.

Until finally, you know, we're there and

he's-- he's these two tables left.

You know, he's 10 people left.

And, you know, finally it's you late at night
and he locks up the final table.

And that's when, you know...

now they don't have the
November 9,

but at that point they had the
November 9.

I mean it was pretty
indescribable.

I know the whole time I was like,

"If he wins this I'm gonna hop the
rail." And-- and sure enough

we see the ESPN coverage, and
everyone just jumped on top of him.

[crowd cheering]

[Spencer]
You know, it was a good celebration...

and something I will never forget.

So, for a $650 investment in Ryan I made
about four hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

When you really think about...

It's a crazy situation for a fucking--

What was I?...

[mumbling]

For a 22 and a 27 year old kid

to have almost a half a million dollar,
handshake deal.

[Stan} Speaking of this tournament,
I did end the day with 13 K

when you start with 50 K. So, after day
one I was feeling pretty miserable.

I'd almost lost hope. I went home, got
some sleep, and realized in the morning

I still have 20 big blinds and I could
easily run this stack up.

You just got to keep a positive mindset
and realize that anything could happen...

All you need is a chip, and a fucking chair!

So day two of the main event
I come in with 22 big blinds to start.

I'm feeling...

Very apprehensive....
Very worried. if I'm gonna build my stack,

But right off rip I start raising,
winning small pots, building my stack

slowly but surely. And by the time you
know it I'm above starting stack and I

have another chance in this tournament.

And we end up making day 3.

When I look down at pocket kings,

and I got 3-bet by one of the most
aggresive people at the table...

There are just stars
lighting off in my head saying,

"Oh my god, yes! I finally got him!
This is the time, I'm gonna stack this dude!

This is what you get for raising my big
blind all this time. I told you not to

fuck with me."
These are the feelings that I'm feeling.

Feelings of gratitude. Feelings of excitement.

And I'm thinking,
"Wow! This could be the year where I make

over a million dollars."

All the hard work I'd done
for three days is finally paying off...

one of the last hands of the night.

It's basically one of the best feelings
you could ever have in poker.

I'm doing alright.
I got, like, 3.5 mil... we chillen

That was a shitty level but...
we're still breathing.

I gotta take a piss.

Mind state is lax-- relaxed.
Ready to go meditate and get back on a

high vibration.

I feel like I lost it a
little bit but it's very easy to get back on.

Just go home, close my eyes, and
get in a relaxed state... and we're back.

Being in the money really doesn't--

I don't really give a fuck
about being in the money.

I'm trying to get all the money.

50 K is not going
to change my life.

I need-- fucking-- at least a million.

No stress... we da best.

I just haven't won a pot.
I've been playing tight.

I haven't got any decent cards.
I opened one hand with Queen eight suited...

Won that. And that was the only hand I
won for the past two hours.

I was very card dead.

And I got three bet a
bunch of times.

So it's time to refocus and rebuild
that positive energy..

So I can go back and dominate.

Well, there's certainly things that some
people are born with that others might

not be born with, initially.

But since I
kind of think everybody-- everything is

connected ultimately, and there's nothing
separating anything.

That we're all connected to
the same source.

The same voice
that's in your head is the same

voice that's talking in my head, and
in everyone else's head.

So in that sense it's really just a
matter of getting a hold of that.

I like to say anybody can win a poker.

Some people might learn to win
at it faster than others.

Are you necessarily
born into being winning player?...

[rocco] Everybody has the ability to improve
upon it, and hard work I've seen in the past

has brought players to the top.

Just believe in yourself
and know that you can do it and...

It's not going to be easy, but...
it wouldn't be fun if it was, you know.

I think that embracing an idea..

is already half of success.

So if you believe,

and you state that you're gonna do
something good...

most likely you gonna do.

If you start
saying, "I should. I could." You know--

It's not gonna happen.

A big part of what happens in your life...

It's not necessarily what you're
capable of

It's what you believe you're capable.
And if you believe you can do something,

it's more likely to happen.

What you you think matters.

It's very hard to measure.

It might be unmeasurable...

But my intuition
tells me that it does matter.

I sent a tweet out, selling action to
that Borgata $500.

and the hashtag was...

gonna win an MTT soon. And...

yeah, I don't
know, and then I did, you know. So I don't,

like, it's hard to explain I don't wanna--
It sounds crazy to say the thing--

you know, to say that-- that I knew
I was gonna win it, but it just seems to be that...

uh...

Well I won. So what it doesn-- it--
it doesnt matter, right.

it doesn't matter how crazy it sounds

'cause I did win.

You know good song
when you hear it. You know a good meal

when you taste it.
But how do you measure it?

There's a certain quality to things

that you know are there, but it's very
difficult to measure it.

You probably find some of the most satisfying
moments in your life, are not moments that you

could measure by how much it costs or
how much you spent.

I think in poker you learn that

once you achieve a goal...
It's really not going to bring you what you want.

Or what you previously thought
you would get from that goal.

What you're really getting is you're growing, and
that's what brings happiness I think.

As long as we're progressing and growing.
That's what's great about poker because

you're never going to reach the top
There is no top and poker... you know.

It's just do your best and see what happens.
And as soon as you think you reached the

top, always the universe is gonna slap
your ass down and give you some perspective.

So, no. Not, like-- no,
my life doesn't change too much, like,

I just having more money. Like, I just have
whatever it is to keep score in this world,

that's-- it just seems to be money
and that's what people want and...

while I don't want a ton of it, you know,
obviously I want enough to be able to

have freedom and do what I want. So yeah.
I mean that part's really cool and I'm

not ignoring that,
but at the same time it's

like the mindset I had even a couple
weeks before the main event was I

determined that I wasn't gonna let my
lack of money, you know, control how I felt.

And you know, you don't need money
to talk to people, right. To-- to have

conversations and camaraderie.
All that stuff is free and that's really

what's important to me and...

If anything,
winning this tournament allows me to

just talk to new people and have new
relationships, and you know, and-- and the

money is cool and I'm glad that that
came with it but to be honest it's-- it's--

it is what it is.

[Rocco] Money gives you the
opportunity, probably, to find happiness a

little bit easier than not having money would.
But that's only because we're in a world

where money matters. If we weren't then
people would be focused on different

things to find happiness. So yeah. It's a
kind of a conundrum. It's cool.

Yeah.

You know, poker is a weird game, where...
you know, you start, and-- and you grow up,

and it takes time to really figure it out.
It doesn't happen overnight.

And you know, looking back to where I was
three years ago even, to being up on this

stage. If you told me this would happen I
wouldn't believe you, so...

Uh, just never give up,

and understand that with a little
hard work and a little foresight you can

accomplish anything you want and I
believe that. So yeah, and you know, the

most important thing that the-- the
8 million dollars is great but--

[crowd laughs]

There is still work left to be done.

You know, I have some
things in my own life that I need

to take care of. And I just want people
to put into perspective that money really

isn't everything, and I really do believe
that. And, you know, it's been a great ride

at poker is a dream come true, but...

You know, take care
of the things that are important to you...

Your family, your
your health, and all that. And, you know...

just try to make the most of what you
got.

So thank you guys so much,
and dream big.

Deep in the main event, on day 5,
I was running kind of bad.

I lost half of my stack.

And an aggressive player opened
two from under the gun, and I had King

nine suited on the cutoff, and I decided
to put it in, which I did not necessarily

need to take this spot. It was more of
frustration out of the past few hours.

And yeah...

that was a spot where I
definitely did not take my time to think

about what I was gonna do.

The outcome was I lost the main event
in one hundred and twenty second place

out of seven thousand six hundred
people or whatever.

My World Series of Poker
summer is over.

I feel really good about
the summer.

Things could have gone
better, but I really can't complain.

I still cashed for about 80 K or something.

[Chris]
On the felt my summer wasn't very good.

As far as poker is concerned I
considered it a failure.

I basically lost over fifty thousand

and cash for roughly
three thousand.

But it's just another part
of the journey.

I feel stronger and
more ready to win now than ever.

I don't think this summer
defines me as a player.

Although, I've had a lot
of bad summers here.

Poker is funny. You don't get to
choose when you win, where you win,

how you win...

You only get to choose the journey
you take and how you handle your circumstances.

I feel like I've already been defined
as a player a long time ago

To be honest with you.
I've been playing this game for what?...

The past ten years I haven't had a job.
So...I've been a player.

My biggest fear about poker?...

Well obviously there's
always the fear of going broke.

That's something that everyone thinks about and--
But the other thing to me is

just that I won't be happy.

If you're not happy with what you're doing

then it's going to show in other
aspects of your life.

I just want to be happy.

It's funny with poker...

a lot of times
your happiness is directly related to

how you're doing in poker.

Really good poker players
are able to look beyond

the success of the game, and judging how
well you're doing in life. I would say

I'm not doing great at that right now
but I'm working really hard.

I've definitely felt like I wanted to
quit before.

Yeah. It happens.

I don't hate the poker itself.

I don't blame the game.
I don't blame the-- the players.

But sometimes when your skill are involved,
and the bad luck comes, you say,

"Ah God, that sucks."

I thought to myself about how,
like, if I was ever to wit-- hit a big score...

maybe play a tournament, get a
million dollars or something...

you know, I would quit!

But then there's times, most of the
time, where I'm just like, "I would never quit."

[Gene} So for me it's more important to
ask yourself, "Are you having fun today?"

'cause the moment is really all you have.

Yeah.
There's a lot and you can win a lot of

money if you're good at this game,
and you work real hard at it.

But a lot of people spend their lives

until they're in their
mid-40s trying to get somewhere,

and then they finally get there, and
they're like, "Well, what did I do that for?"

You know, it just depends what you want
out of this world. Like, it depends what you--

what your goals and intentions are,
and mine are just strictly to--

You know, just do the things I enjoy.

And...

just-- just live.

A lot of the reasons I have probably
never moved on is because poker

facilitates my ability to, like...

Be immature
and to be irresponsible.

[Tommy] I just love it so much

if I didn't always have
another poker trip around the corner...

that would be a problem.

But I always need to know
that I have another poker fix coming.

If nickel dime poker was the
only poker left, I would play the shit

out of some nickel dime poker.

[Mikey] I mean to
do what we do every day is just so great,

and, like, really such a blessing man.
Like, I go back home in Yonkers, New York,

which is like not a good neighborhood
at all.

And, you know, I go back. I see my
friends, my family, and everybody.

And I just the reality
of what everybody's doing

on a daily basis. And I'm
looking, I'm like, "Holy shit. I sit down.

I wake up at, like, noon if I want, you know,
or three. I go eat breakfast at 4 p.m., you know...

I go jump in a tournament or a cash
game in New Vegas, or New York, or the Bahamas.

You know.

And there's people I see all the time
who just bitch and complain about

getting 6th and not 4th or you know--
Whatever, not making enough money.

It's like shit man get a grip
on reality! Like, look at our lives, it's great!

We should never complain! We shou--
Somebody should smack us and we complain!

Like, it's crazy!

[Tommy] I've always loved poker the
way all of us love it because

it is so exciting and everything.

But it also caused me so much
pain over the years. You know, now finally

I can love it in a different way because
I'm not afraid of being hurt by poker.

So now I just enjoy the camaraderie .
You know, it's like you-- if you look at the

Rio downstairs,
you've got all these thousands of people

collected in a room, thousands of people
every day for six weeks...

Sharing one common passion.
One common love.

And and I just share that love.

It's hard to explain.

I mean,
the reason I would continue to play is

just because I love the game. I really do.

The game would be perfect if everyone

played within their means, you know.
That's the problem. The game-- it's tough

because it is very self-serving. It only
benefits one person that's the downside.

And you know, the negative sometimes
outweigh the positives for me but...

The game itself is great. It's cool. It's
mental warfare that's all it is.

It's a battle of brains, and wits, and math, and,

you know, all these things that just make
it a great game.

You know, my dreams
of being an athlete died pretty fast for

a good reason, and I had to make it on
ESPN someway and uh...

I wouldn't call it a sport, but...

it's just a really fun game,
and I'm really glad it's part of my life.

[camera man chuckles]