How To CRUSH Poker With Daniel Negreanu!

hello everyone I'm Jonathan little I'm here today with one of my favorite poker players in the world we have Daniel legranu he has six World Series of Poker bracelets he's probably gonna get two more this year he was Player of the Year twice he's won the super high roller roll he's done it all in poker he's currently according to the global poker index most popular poker player in the world by a mile it's not even close he has a very popular YouTube channel he's a Gigi Pro he's a great Ambassador for poker and I'm happy to have Daniel negranu here today well always a pleasure to speak with one of my favorite YouTube Stars Mr Jonathan little thank you very much I appreciate you being here we all appreciate you being here the World Series poker is here World Series of Poker the world series of pokers here and I think I saw that you said that you plan to try to play 88 out of the 115 events why so why are you crazy well here's the thing right when I make my schedule I put out potential events that I may play right now if I were to play all those events it would be the world's worst World Series in the history of Poker because it assumes things like I never make a day two right that I never ever like have any success through seven weeks so those are just ones where say for example I'm in the 10K Razz I bust and there's a 1500 PLL okay I might play that what I like to do because we sell pieces at pokerstick.com is uh I like to include all the events possible and then when I sell the pieces the ones that I don't play people get refunded off so I have a piece of reaction I try to have a piece of reaction every single year I think it's uh not not Financial advice not Financial advice but Daniel DeGraw new action that no markup in the World Series of Poker is probably a good deal what possesses you to sell a decent amount of Your Action at no markup well first and foremost I mean I don't need the money right and I always looked at markup and I totally understand why people do it and need to do it but for someone in my position it felt like nickel and Diamond because the purpose of me doing it wasn't to make money off of Poker fans right I thought when I started doing the Vlogs in 2017 I said like I think of sports right and if you watch a team that's one in seven and another one that's two and eight is that a fun game to watch well no but it is when you have a little bit of money on it right so I thought by creating essentially the TV show The YouTube show the Vlogs daily giving people a chance sometimes maybe they can like tune out of what's happening in social media and this is like they can live vicariously through it I thought wow how cool would it be if I can give people a little piece and again financially it didn't make much of a difference to me yeah I am giving up money I am giving up Equity but last year people bought into the World Series piece and didn't go so well which is always possible so uh last year I think you lost money 1.1 million dollars a whole pile what no exactly yeah luckily for those that still had faith in the super high roller Bowl I did sell a piece of that and I you know cash for 3.3 million so I was able to recoup for those people but obviously not the World Series people but I think that was the first year that I mean I don't know maybe I've had smaller losses I don't remember but um you know I haven't had a loss that big and it really comes down to you know you play the 250k once or twice and you play The High Rolls if you don't do well in those like a million isn't very much so funny enough you had a bad World Series and you won a big tournament I've actually done that before as well I had a terrible World Series and I wanted WPT like right after and I think a lot of people who have not gone through crazy swings and poker struggle with showing up and playing sane every day when things are going horribly wrong and explain how that feels when you do show up and you just kind of get crapped on and you have to show up the next day what keeps you motivated to show up and play your best because like you said you don't necessarily need to do it for the money why do you do it yeah I was talking to Eric Washington about that he thinks I love the pain I don't know if I agree with that but it's sort of had it's a theory that could hold some weight but you're right I'm human and I live my emotions I experience them in the moment I'm fine with that but I went through about a two-week period at the World Series where I mean I'm not even like making it up I have video I didn't win any all-ins like I was like how do you win I was like so frustrated because I'm like how am I supposed to win if I lose every time I go all in and it wasn't like I was going all in with you know the worst hand I had the best of it almost every time so then what I do is this I've always been very resilient you know and very self-motivated and I put a lot of pressure on myself and I do love it and I sort of enjoy the grind of getting back out there and giving it a go but I have a little bit of a checklist which I'll share if you don't mind sure I asked myself why am I if I'm losing I ask myself a few questions am I getting it in bad pre-flop okay no am I bluffing it off too much no am I calling it off too much no am I getting so short that I'm just like not really picking up spots and not having big stacks and things like that and if the answer to like all those questions is no right then I'm like okay well then hang in there right you have some Faith you're doing the right things you got it in I had three to one for the chip hate didn't work your way this time but as long as it's not a case of like looking back at the sessions and going yeah I did pay off 80 of my stack in that spot and so so that's what I do and I really that's that's how I gauge after all these years with the experience how well am I playing right now it's independent of results I could be I could be playing poorly and winning and I know that and you do as well as a professional which that's you know there's not many I think Endeavors that that's true so imagine you go through that checklist and you do see that you did something wrong in your mind after the fact now to be fair maybe you're supposed to call off with a second nuts and the guy is the nuts and you lose right like that happens but what happens if you think you play poorly what what do you do to show back up ready to play the next day because a lot of people get really down when they screw up because they realize you're going to get unlucky sometimes right that happens but you don't necessarily have to play poorly so what's interesting and I don't know if this is the mindset that most people have but I kind of get excited about it frankly whenever I have some sort of a breakdown or a hole or a leak I'm like aha they're just not paying me off ever nobody's calling me so it must mean I'm not bluffing enough like there's spots here that I'm not taking I need to start taking those so I'll always be introspective and think about new ways new lines new approaches different things I can do because I've always been more of an exploitative mind right I did study you know Game Theory and you know did sort of relatively High Level Playing heads up but I've understood that my skill level or my Edge has always been understanding how people perceive me and then finding ways to exploit so whenever I notice things are not going well it's an opportunity for me to go okay what can I open up here what can I do differently that maybe uh um you know I wasn't thinking about in the moment and that's what I think a lot of people do who succeed at a high level they realize I am losing for some reason okay I made this mistake I lost for this reason and I need to figure out how to take advantage of it in the future right like if you are blinding down you're folding too often well you're probably getting bluffed too often right or the opposite if you're always calling off and losing you're probably a calling station right and so so it's funny you mentioned calling station because oh boy if people are okay no there was a hand against you where I was really disappointed in myself I made a big mistake by letting you win a pot because I went through it and I had a natural Bluff I had nine tennis Spades the board was like Ace king queen eight eight and there were you know two spades on the turn and even the the eight was not a spade so like I blocked eight nine suited and I bet turn and you checked the river and I went through in my head when you called Turn like sauna thought oh no I think Jonathan might be a little bit stationy in the spot so I elected to not go with the GTO approved move and I checked it back and you would have folded it for sure it was Ace Queen you had Queen ten you could never call but uh so I was really disappointed and that's an example right where it's like I ended up busting that tournament later getting it in but like that was a key and keep hot that I'm supposed to win but you know made a miscalculation in the situation it's a tough thing though because I could have just had a hand I'm not folding right but the thing is is I have to give you see the thing is I'm not sure like I don't play with you enough I'm not totally sure how you perceive me in terms of my bluffing right so if I had you Peg to somebody who thinks Daniel never Bluffs I'm never checking that but I was thinking you know you might you've watched some of my videos you've seen enough of the moves if you will that if you had an ace specifically you might call but I remember specifically in that situation essentially your range was capped it was you raise the cut off I three but the button you just called and it was like king queen eight check check turn the ACE check I bet third pot River and eight you checked and I just had nine ten of Spades and was like check it was so stupid it was just like even if I'm just even if you do call it's like what I really should have done there was put you to the test even if you do have an Ace and just like make an over bet yeah you can call like gonna put me in a bad spot and I don't have very many trips then you will have some and maybe have straight sometimes right well like I said I have the eight nine I had the nine of Spades or blocking nine suited so you didn't forebet me I can mostly rule out Aces and kings and queens you know it's just gonna be a tough call for you but I chickened out well you got to play better next time you know you can't play great all the time the next time I'm just gonna block you like crazy if you've watched this channel you know that I am a bit of a calling station I do not like folding but I would have folded the queen 10 there see that's what I'm saying I was lying about that I was like yeah I should bet here but Chuck It's Curious look a lot of people are going to the World Series for the first time and they are gonna make all sorts of mistakes both at and away from the table so for people who are kind of good at poker they're watching this channel they're not total novices right what few pieces of advice would you give them to avoid the common pitfalls that you think most people who are serious recreational players going to World Series are going to encounter all right I'm gonna give two separate pieces of advice for the two different groups that you sort of mentioned right you know people that are coming up for the first time you know maybe recreational players not professionals not trying to be but want to actually enjoy the experience I say first and foremost have fun like really just soak it in you know listen understand that it's you know an entertainment like you're you're probably gonna lose it's just true most tournaments like if you only play 33 tournaments the chances that you actually win money at the pre-tournaments is low right because it's you know the nature of the Beast so have fun with it when you get in there just play your game like don't be intimidated right like you play the way you play don't think at all all of a sudden you know I'm sitting next to Jonathan little I gotta change my game do what you do best do what you know a lot of people always ask me that question like what do I need to do differently I said it's too late for that right yeah yeah you are somebody who's going out there with you know maybe like a limited bankroll who does want to do this professionally now you have to monitor yourself in a very different way you have to be much more mindful of your bankroll of the stakes that you're playing making sure that you're finding yourself in tournaments that are like really good value right maybe playing you know satellites or some events at different properties that are smaller and things like that but really sort of map it out and I would suggest this if you are going to go for a week or two map it out now okay you don't have to stick to it right but have an idea of what every day is going to look like for you roughly so that way you don't wake up in the morning going oh no where do I go where do I play I have a map it up you know map it out and really sort of think about how you want to approach it for sure and you mentioned it but you need to prepare ahead of time right you need to study ahead of time get good at poker before you go ideally because once you're there there's not a whole lot you can do Beyond show up play ready to play and then play your best because yeah that's where I go with like so during play isn't the time to learn isn't that's not the time to try things out like go with what you got right you're like this is the game I got this is the game I'm gonna bring I'm gonna do my best with it when the series is over you can look back and go all right there are some areas I can improve upon you get in the lab if you will you study and you and you know you you give your best shot next time I'm not sure how many people know this but your first cache is a World Series as far as I know it was back in 1998 in a 2K Pot Limit Hold'em tournament and you want it somehow sounds like a miracle like Chris Moneymaker story so what was the World Series of Poker like back then and how was that experience of winning the first tournament you cashed in at the World Series yeah so the World Series of Poker interestingly enough like I was it was the late 90s as you said I first went out there in 96 and played satellites theater Huck seed one couldn't get into the main I remember taking this it's still pains to me to this day like there was 11 seats giving away I came 13th going broke with Aces but it's funny when you know you're only 21 22 that one stings and you remember it forever of course and then you know I went back in 97 and still wasn't able to you know afford it because back then guys what you don't realize is the smallest tournament was a 2K there was no 400 or 300 Gladiator type stuff right so what we did if you were you know want to be part of the World Series experience was you played the Super satellites for the main or you played the one tables to try to get into events so I was on a short bank roll playing 10 20 20 40 limit Hold'em I found myself three-handed in the satellite with Todd Brunson and Mike Madden so in a game I'd never played before Pot Limit Hold'em played No Limit played limit so we get heads up and uh you know Todd's throws he says you want to save 500 or something like that when you're three I say sure I beat him you know I actually got lucky I had King jacket king queen he threw me the 500 and said I'll take a piece of you tomorrow well I wasn't gonna play because I had 2800 to my name Todd Brunson just said he has enough faith in my game but he thinks I should play so you know of course I do jump in the event and I'd had some success I'd won a tournament three space straight stops in California Foxwoods Atlantic City um back then and then I remember just making the money thinking wow this is cool you know two tables winning a flip all right you know making the final table and it was all sort of like surreal because at the time I was the youngest player to ever win a World Series of Poker and I was 1-0 and I thought wow I'm just gonna win like a couple bracelets every year and have a hundred by the time I'm 40. didn't work out that way you mentioned you had twenty eight hundred dollars to your name but you would won two tournaments three tournaments previously where'd all your money go ah good question so I would go to LA with like 30 000 I'd win a couple I'd win a tournament or something and I win in the cash games and uh somehow I only had 15 000 left I made bad decisions in trusting people back then and staking people and I was kind of an easy Mark if you will you know there's a lot of like quote-unquote Hustlers back in the day who I would stake in cash or tournaments and so I was making bad decisions with the money that I was making um which was all part of the you know I don't regret it you know I don't regret it because I learned my lesson but basically that's where it went you know just uh helping everybody it's interesting I think a lot of poker players go through this where if lending money or buying people's action whatever goes fine in the beginning they're they're stuck for a long time but if it goes poorly right off the bat they're just kind of done with it I got lucky in that I taught a guy to play poker a long time ago when I was 18. I bought him a computer I gave him a thousand dollars to play online and then he promptly moved five states away and never talked to me again so I got robbed right off the bat when I was 18 for a computer and a thousand bucks and giving people my money has fortunately not been my problem yeah now I'll be listed here's the thing I grew up in a different time before online poker and uh you know I'm just very new to the scene I was traveling by myself and making friends and hearing that and again like you know I was obviously an up-and-comer and other people saw me and there they need money so they're like let me be nice to that kid and see if I can get staked yeah it's a tough thing because like if you never to get a loan or get a sake you in turn don't really need to give the loans and mistakes but at the same time like maybe you're traveling you don't have a ton of money or maybe you're you know pushing trying to go over your bankroll as fast as possible which will mean you're gonna lose sometimes maybe you need the stakes so it's almost like part of the deal to some extent it is like in the world that I live in too when you talk about high stakes like sometimes you know if you well I don't travel as much but like you're traveling different locations you know you need 50 000 or something for a buy-in you see a guy there and there's kind of a you know it's kind of an Unwritten rule where like there's some trust there although now to be honest with you even at those Stakes it's much easier to pay that debt immediately because most people deal in crypto to some degree so if someone needs 50k cash they're like all right I'll send you uh you know a couple Bitcoin or whatever so the world has changed a lot that was not a thing back then and poker has changed a ton right and a lot of players from 1998 are no longer in the poker space today because presumably they ran out of money or something else but you're still here and you are still at the top what I want to know and what everybody wants to know is what makes you special and unique to the point that you have found a way to consistently stay at the top number one is I love it I just love it I look forward to the World Series I'm twiddling my thumbs I can't wait right that's number one number two and this is gonna sound people are gonna go like you no it's self-awareness and humility I know that sounds crazy for someone to say you know in my shoes but it's true in the sense that like I always have a healthy respect for the younger generation and my peers rather than do what you know when I was young and up and comer I remember the Tom mcavois and the Brad daugherties they like scoff at me this aggressive kid you know he's gonna go broke right I don't do that I look at what they're doing I look at the Michael Adamo who is you know in my mind probably the latest of the kind of new age unique players and I always want to know and understand like what are they doing I hired people to help me learn how to use solvers and understand Game Theory so I've always every couple years at the very least kind of been introspective and say all right you know I like where my game's at but I there's there's areas to improve and one of the ways to do that is to learn things from others and sort of incorporate that I think it's like a deadly combination when you take someone like me who has 30 years of experience or what how many is it 30 yeah 30 years of experience playing this game exploitatively and then teach him you know the theory behind all this stuff now I what I do is I essentially try to understand the theory and figure out how people misapply it because I think the dangerous thing people do is they see what a solve says and go oh that's the right play like but is it is there anything deeper that you can look to because you know it's it's a it's a crutch and sometimes when you make the correct theoretical play it's an absolute hunt of all puns well especially in a tournament right yeah no question about right so for example you know you're playing in a tournament and you know that you know at 10 big lines if somebody shoves a small line you know the range you're supposed to call with and it's pretty wide right and that's true but if you just did that and didn't factor in the fact that the player who went all in the small blind is the biggest knit of all time and you decide well King six off is a defend no it's really not against this player you have to learn to adjust your calling and you know ranges against players like that also in a tournament you just want to survive right so imagine whatever King six is the worst scene you're supposed to call with on a GTO calling chart but you know two-thirds of the field is gone you should be folding because there's value just hanging out and I think a lot of people misapply going for thin value bets on the river and going for Big Hero calls and big Bluffs on the river because they're usually barely profitable right and if it's barely profitable it's not worth taking a risk for a bunch of your chips well you bring up a really important point that I discussed in a video recently but I think a lot of people don't understand a lot of people study pre-flop and flop because that is kind of the easiest streets to do it gets more complex on Turner River so people will look at the Flop and they'll be like all right against the quarter pot C bet I should defend with like Ace 10 on Queen nine four right they like say for example just throwing it out there so you're supposed to defend here like because it's worth point zero six of a big blind for example right now here's the thing it's worth point zero six of a big one to a solver because guess what the solver will play the turn in the river perfectly you will not you will not so the question is is this a compounding error right or just because it says for the solver it's plus CD it doesn't mean it's plus easy for you if you're not going to be able to navigate the turn in the river you know optimally which again again most people won't so sometimes I will make folds on the Flop that I know are solver approved calls because I don't want to find myself especially like you said in tournaments in difficult spots where you know I might go broke yeah I think a lot of people get it in their heads that they are better at poker than they actually are and they think their opponents are worse than poker then they actually are a lot of the time and I think that leads to them in that spot thinking well it's barely profitable because well so I can call because they are going to play worse than the solver Without Really realizing that they are going to play worse than the solver too and get some in trouble but I mean like going back to the way you were thinking about improving your skills you realize that you are not 100 perfect poker player right I mean you're obviously literally one of the best in the world maybe the best in the world but there's a still a lot of room for improvement even for you and no exactly it's the moment you stop thinking that you need to improve that you get surpassed and I remember you know on this sort of topic you know in terms of what you said about you know everyone thinks everyone else sucks Ted Force used to say to me most people compare their a game to everybody's F game right they're like you see a guy play a hand terribly like oh my god did you see that call Jonathan made how bad was that and then you know they had this whole idea about like that's encompasses all of who you are and how you play which is a huge mistake that you can use to exploit other people it's especially true if you see me hero collie with that Queen 10 from earlier with like a really bad hero call on the river let's just say then you may think I'm the biggest calling station in the world but maybe that was one in a million right for whatever reason I didn't put the money if I would have bluffed there for pot size bed and you called with Queen 10 the first thought that's going to go in my head is never ever Bluff Jonathan ever again in a million years okay don't do it right yeah I mean some people take that concept to the extreme and they'll make poor decisions with the idea that I think I'm gonna make a poor decision now so my opponent now thinks that in this case I'm a super duper calling station and I can just fold every time they bat the river but I'm not so sure that necessarily applies I mean you might see that thing but I don't know how long it's gonna stick in your head I don't know how long you're gonna remember it and are we even have a spot like that in the future for me to take advantage of it I don't I a lot of people make these advertising plays especially in casual home games thinking they're gonna capitalize but I'm not I'm not sure that's the case what do you think yeah no you bring up a good point because essentially what you're doing is creating a psychological leveling War right where it's like oh my God he just showed like a really big Bluff or he called me really light is he going to continue to do that or is he doing that so that he'll think this and that right so essentially it's it doesn't make it any easier necessarily when you're playing against thinking players I do think there's value against you know some weaker recreationals and stuff like that creating an image that you can later exploit but at the higher levels like you know your love you end up often leveling yourself into making mistakes so I kind of view you as one of the like best leveling people and best table talking people yet here you are saying that you have to be careful against good people right because who knows what they're doing and that's also something a lot of people don't realize they think they know what their opponents are doing but very often they just don't I mean they're doing something but you don't know what they're doing I mean the other day in the heads up match you got level kind of nicely remember that one with the jack 10. oh he loved me a bunch of times so Eric person we're talking about somehow leveled you a ton it didn't help me still lost T table talks a lot too right so some of the things he says right if you look at past video when he says this he has it and you know he was doing the same thing when he didn't so he's conscious of what he's doing and what he's giving off and I think if you are going to enter those that world of psychological warfare you have to be very cognizant of you know the things you've done in the past I give you a perfect example if that's okay yeah Martin zamani got me so good in the PLO tournament at the poker Go studio it was a hand where I was bluffing the river um the board became like Queen High turn was an ace turn was a king River was an ace and I bet River representing 10 Jack um and he tanked for almost two minutes he looked over at me and he's like you got to give me something I said what do you have like Ace queen or something and he's like historically when you call people's hand that means you're bluffing you can't beat it I call I'm like oh my God he watches way too much video so I got totally owned because he did his homework so that makes think the right situation against most people especially the more casual talkative players not casual meaning like bad player you know the looser players as opposed to still with players this is just sit there and be quiet and don't say anything no question when I play against your life you will not see me say anything because he knows me so well we go way back and it's not like I'm ever going to be able to out talk I'm all I'm going to be doing if I talk to Phil Ivey is like telling him what I am but then that that extrapolates to apparently zamani and maybe personally who knows who else right and it's unfortunate because the table talk makes at least televised poker a whole lot more fun and actually playing poker a whole lot more fun but now here you are kind of incentivized because you don't want to lose money to not table talk so much that was on me like I take responsibility for that mistake because I didn't I didn't do I didn't figure out Martin zamani well enough to know that like he watches a lot of Poker on TV right so when someone watches a lot of Poker on TV a lot of my tricks they're going to have seen so I have to be thoughtful of that and not you know and maybe break up the pattern or or like you said just don't say anything in those spots yeah I mean I always recommend that to people who are not world-class table talkers just sit there and be quiet when you're in a hand you can talk when you're not in a hand you'll be okay but they think they're gonna be able to level their opponent I don't know why they think that even though they don't even know the opponent and I think a lot of people think they know things that they just cannot know and do not know they get some in trouble in all aspects of life um so speaking of televised poker I think you said a while back that televised poker should be more like professional wrestling and a little bit less like golf does that sound familiar yeah-ish for sure ish okay not trying to take your words out of context poker has uh definitely aired towards professional wrestling over the last few weeks I think and where's the line that's the question what is acceptable at and away from the table whether it is legitimately malicious or whether it is purely to get attention and eyeballs on you like what is acceptable behavior today because in professional wrestling anything goes I think well here's the thing I think we do we dip way below the line right and that's kind of why I said ish because here's what I think like the wrestling thing you know the banter the back and forth the rivalries all good and well but once you start drawing past when you start to get to like personal attacks on people's character and you know throwing out words like scammer and fraud or you know these kind of things I think we've devolved into something that's become nasty and any sort of mob think group activity against one person like we saw you know kind of with Berkey um when he played on that live stream recently I think is it just felt very like very high school like I think you can sort of incorporate characters fun like if you look at jungle man right he's incorporating WWE stuff but that's because he's wearing a costume he wears a costume and plays a character that's like he's like oh yeah I'm Macho Man Randy Savage and he Embraces it and it's fun and jungle's just being jungle ultimately I think what sells best is when people are being genuine authentic to who they are and I get it listen people are playing in High Roller tournaments they're not there to entertain they're not there to be a circus clown they're there to win the money so they're not there to like you know put on a you know a clown suit or something like that but if you are on a made-for-tv event and you're invited to it I do think there's some responsibility of like adding to it and contributing by being entertained in some way for sure um it's tough I think because a lot of people may be unaware of things they do that potentially offend other people and nowadays on the internet you can fend anybody with anything for example yesterday you wore a big muscle suit when you play it against person because person has big muscles but what if somehow some way person's actually really ashamed and embarrassed of his muscles because they're not big enough and now you're making fun of his muscles and now you've offended him and now he gets mad at you I'm not saying this is what's happening but imagine like that happens and now you got the bodybuilder Community getting mad at you on the internet and next thing you know your band for wearing a muscle suit this is obviously a joke yeah that expands past just poker and sort of the world we're living in with an Uber sensitivity to certain things and people being offended on others behalf it makes me think of years ago on the NBC heads up I played against Scotty Wynn and I dressed like Scotty put him mullet did the chains and I can do a pretty good Scotty impersonation right so Scotty loved it he embraced it we laughed we had beers we're good friends right people outside of that were letting me know how offensive that is to Scotty but I'm like uh Scotty's fine with it similar to Eric person you know example I knew he's a good sport so I knew I could bring out the you know the fingers I brought up these big phone fingers like this to him because he did that to helm Youth and it's all in good fun and it's good natured and I think here's what I think we lose in our society now is intense right when I did that thing with Scotty was there any sort of racial undertones or demeaning Behavior was was that true with their person no it's all about having fun and I think right now you know in our culture there's a little bit of a hypersensitivity to like you know looking for things looking for reasons to be offended even when the when the you know the party being sort of you know poked fun at is laughing along with the joke yeah it's it's a rough thing because maybe the party being joke dad is laughing along with it it's perfectly cool with it but maybe people like that person or not for whatever reason you know and that's that's where it's tough because you can make people mad for all sorts of reasons some people don't like me and I try to be nice to everybody you know and it's it's a roughly like I know that people today don't believe intent matters and I totally disagree with that ideology I really think like if you have for example you know a 75 year old man from Texas and he goes to a restaurant and the waitress comes by and he goes he says oh hey honey you look lovely today can I can I get some more sugar right we know now that you know using the word honey and speaking to a woman in that way is considered somewhat you know offensive but like do you think his intent was demeaning or whatever he was being kind in his way so we have to be more understanding and accepting of how rapidly things are changing and that you know we should we should always question like people's intent behind anything that they did I just want to all be adults and love each other and get along let's just be adults right come on let's be adults it's not high school anymore maybe it's not high school for some people but it's not high school anymore so uh you're an ambassador for GG poker and every time I look at their site they have tons of traffic lots of big games and that's good to see and online poker I feel might be in a rough spot though due to all sorts of other things like rake increases like uh people using real-time assistance Etc et cetera et cetera and I want to know what your future predictions are for online poker well it's very hard to say right I think online poker in one form another is going to exist forever like I think people enjoy it and whatnot but you're right you know you bring up some important points specifically about our you know AI you know and how what what in what we end up having now is we have a cat and mouse game right of you know the operators trying to catch the cheaters and the cheaters trying to figure out how they're trying to catch them and get away with things because anytime you're talking about a game like poker or anything related to money you're always going to have people that are dishonest they're going to try to uh you know to catch you Gigi I think is at the Forefront of like catching people you know like about a year and a half ago I think two now you know we banned about I think it was between 60 and 150 accounts that you know we figured out we're doing some things that were nefarious but um but yeah you know as people get better and online poker it's very data driven I think balance having a fair balance where everyone's has access to the same data which you do you know within the software you can sort of see your uh poker craft if you will um and you know see statistics on other opponents I think that's levels of playing field to a certain degree but you're right listen at the high stakes high stake games don't run unless you're able to bring in a player that others feel there's value right so if you look at high stakes poker Gigi is really the only place that has regular high-stakes poker so why is that why would be the reason that GG has it because they have access and they have ways of bringing in quote unquote the fun players and then the pros play because what we don't see any words you don't see Pro on Pro Regan rig action like we used to 5-10 years ago that doesn't exist those days I think are gone right because now people look at them like yeah there's no point in playing against a Crusher right and you know both of us paying rake we need somebody to sort of support the game and if they don't exist then you know you don't have a game that's true not only of high stakes but all games all games are are created that way definitely so I know a while back you played like 100 200 for a while online I know even practicing heads up a lot for the heads up match you played against folk a while back and I've always liked the idea of sitting down spending a lot of time learning a specific form of Poker back when I was a kid I would spend six months learning a new game like PLO or stud or whatever and just play it a ton and those two games in particular I think you know online cash games and also heads up are really really good for making you good at No Limit Hold'em especially deep stack know them and hold them and I was wondering if you could give us a few things that you learned recently in the process of trying to improve your skills that maybe you are applying wrong because maybe I'm applying it wrong and everybody else is applying it wrong you bring up a good point specifically about heads up poker because here's the thing it's almost like when you play heads up you're filling your plate with a bunch of food that's like you know overloaded you've got so much on your plate right well because Rangers are super duper wide right so you have to be in there with a lot of hands you're on the Flop thinking okay this person could have clean three offices right when you're playing eight-handed you don't have to worry about under the gun having Queen free off suit you can narrow the range down which makes the calculations much easier counting the combinations and the value and the Bloss it's so much simpler when you can narrow arrange it down so essentially it's as though you're training your muscle by taking on something so much more complex and then what you what I do from that is extrapolate you know towards you know to sort of figure out how to play against even tighter ranges it just makes it a little bit easier so essentially learning how to play heads up well at an elite level is far more complex in some ways than ring obviously the one aspect of ring is when you have multi-way pots there's all this extra stuff to think about but overall being able to Define hand ranges is so much easier eight-handed you know to to than is when like you know a guy's opening button with like nine six off like you know it's it's just it becomes a much more so I found by studying that very hard I was able to extrapolate a lot of what I learned there to uh you know playing ring games and tournaments and stuff I think we've seen just historically a lot of players who started playing heads up and got to decently high levels heads up have become very good foring and tournament Players because they're used to more difficult situations right they're used to playing much wider ranges and when you cut the range down by half it becomes simpler right and it's easier for those players I don't think we've seen a whole lot of players go from playing mostly nine-handed poker to heads up though because it's very difficult to do that because you're used to playing whatever 20 hands now you got to play 80. it's a big big adjustment and a big ask for someone who's used to playing kind of good hands most of the time now having to play a lot of junk yeah so one to answer your question sort of before too is about like what one thing I got away I pulled out from it big time was like you said when you play eight or nine-handed by the river Rangers are pretty narrow and people just usually have a pretty good hand if they call the bed on the flop in the turn right so you don't Bluff as much right because you're up against you know stronger ranges when your head's up probably the one thing that was like shocking to me is how often the computer wants you to Bluff it wants you to Bluff a lot a lot more than most any human is comfortable with right you're gonna be like hitting me I have to go 3x pot here are you this is insane you know with like with the with these crazy hands it's like when you go from ring game poker two heads up I think that's probably one of the biggest eye-opening experiences with understanding from a balanced perspective it makes sense right like somebody bets the river you know they have to be able for you to for you to uh ever call them they have to be bluffing at a recent at a decent clip too and if they're not you can just fold every time and you print TV if you don't have the nuts it's also interesting you mentioned the DraStic overpods that you've seen happen that heads up way more than most other forms of Pokemon I think that's because a lot of heads up players have studied the river more they get to the river way more than four ring players because they play more hands and they play wider ranges and therefore they study the river more and they see a lot of these spots where you should be over potting it on the river and that's something you see a lot of like really good online players doing and also a lot of really good heads-up players doing that a lot of more let's call it full ring players do not do yeah it starts on turn too right like you see a lot of turnover bets and spots where you know often like you know you're up against like cap kind of ranges you know that allows you to sort of bet bigger and then like you said obviously on the river one thing you know we sort of touched on this earlier like the human brain will never be able to mimic a solver because even with solvers here's the thing that's important to know I know like say for example when you do a saw you put in a small size a big size and an overbat and you ask the computer which of these three things would you do sir and it sort of gives you of the three things you ask what it would do but optimally the solver may choose something completely outside of that so let's say for example the biggest bet you gave it was one and a half times pot but you also let's say for example said what about 6x5 maybe maybe it chooses that right but it's impossible for us to put in every possible sizing range so the whole idea behind solver use is it gives us an idea of what the solver is wanting us to do wants us to make a small bit a big bit or an over bet and we kind of have to extrapolate from that and humanize it right where we we figure out a limited number of sizes but understand solvers aren't limited they they can literally pull out any size out of their butt or out of their you know compute whatever you call the inner workings of a computer and and very often they do so what I typically do is we'll run the spot using some more common sizes that if you see the solver use mostly the big bats then you just have to rerun it but with more and bigger bets right and then see what you're looking at then and sometimes uses huge bets like you say and that's a lot of fun really smart way to do it that's a very smart way to do it and that's particularly what I think Michael Adama was doing frankly because he brought like you know everyone thinks this is GTO poker right because everyone's using the same sizes you know one third two thirds one and a half I'm like yeah but there's other sizes that can be gto2 and I think Adamo spent a lot of time like uh working with totally different sizes and learning those at a high level so then when people approach it they don't know how to deal with it it's like wait a minute you see bet 150 pot like what nobody does that you see about 300 like what do I do against that and if you're not familiar with it um that's why I think there's some value in sort of not too much but like coming up with your own sizes because if you're just using the sizes that everybody learns in all the different study programs it's like you're making it you're making life a little bit easier yeah I know like I don't I've never talked strategy with Adamo but what I have to imagine he's doing is he is using lots of big size options but also adjusting what the opponent against the solver does against those big size options and I gotta presume he is saying that you're an overfold to those big size options because I think most people fold whenever you put in the 2x pot turn bet with middle pair right whereas maybe you're supposed to be calling the middle here a lot right well that's the thing it depends it depends on the scenario right by the function of way poker works right the larger the bet the stronger the hand you need to call sure right so if so if there's if there's a thousand dollars in the pot and someone bets a dollar okay I'll call you with a pair of Deuces fine right you're probably three three High I think yeah but you know what it's a dollar right so you know you could win a thousand you're getting a thousand one why not but if there's now a thousand in the pot and someone bets 50 000 right well now you can't just call with like a pair of Deuces that's kind of suicidal unless you know for certain that that player is bluffing too often right so it becomes again a little bit of a leveling Warren Michael Adamo I think you know did a really good job employing different sizes that mess people's brains up yeah I mean I can guarantee whenever you put start putting out two pot that's on the turn with a lot of money left on the river people fold too often because they don't want to face a big river bat and so you know but then you have some others who are like ah screw this guy I'm sick of these big bets I'm gonna call and then he shows the nuts and they're like oh I have a pair of sixes right so you guys through that time you called him early and uh what was some big tournament and he just like showed you the nuts and you had Ace King or something and it's just like an easy call against him I think but he just had the nuts and you lost and everyone's like why would the ground who call here but the answer is because he does this stuff all the time it was an interesting part actually I did the solve right and the play he made on the river was a 22 big blind mistake according to the solver but he's smarter than that he bet he basically bet 3x pop in his with a hand that he's never supposed to do that with ever really and you know not for that size but he correctly deduced that I was going to over call in this spot against him and I wasn't going to be pushed around so he just went for it that's probably one of the best things I learned from madama is so say for example there's a spot where you know if you bet a third pot like the guy was probably gonna call you right and if you bet like 3x spot they're probably gonna fold but you know what if they do call once in a while that's worth risking the one-third you get what I'm saying yeah you got to keep him honestly one third but you could just really go for it and he did in that spot so he basically doubled up in a spot where no other player would have because no other player would have bet that song also maybe he just knows that some people overfold and some people over call and guy who's not playing for the money who's trying to win the tournament uh that might be the guy you want to go for full value against because he's not going to fold well that's where poker gets fun right I've had just I've had historically an image of being freaking payoff station he also knows that he's like maybe DNX will find the call I'll jam it in his face okay it worked congrats but I got him the next year I did bust him trapped him good and tried to block me this time not going to work so a lot of people would have lost the first one where you he recalled with whatever Bluff catcher and then now they're gonna be terrified to call him ever again in the future but that would be ridiculous right because he is going to Bluff sometimes if he's good and he is good well this is the thing right against the if you took your average player and they bet three I wouldn't have called with my other days King it's gonna fold because not many players have the guts or the you know to put in a 250 000 buying tournament in level one to just be like YOLO I'm ripping it right most people are just going to have them right so I would fold against almost everyone except that gentleman he's earned calls against me because it's funny after he did that people like oh how could you call Daniel how could you call about an hour later he ran almost The Identical same hand exact same thing so it's like haha this is why I called because he Bluffs sometimes he probably got called against you and got the fold against Schindler and he won all the money right now he's a game right sometimes it lines up he did both I will say though whenever you use a style that puts yourself all in a lot both with value and with Bluffs you're gonna have big swings I think a lot of people see the very very battling type players and they think that that is exciting poker and it is exciting but we're gonna be wrong but I'm sure Domino's gone on some big upswings and some big downswings but probably bigger than me because I'm a little bit on the more cautious side I'm not all in every other hand the last time I was in Cabo playing the GG World Series of Poker uh Adamo was in a 25k with us and they show you on the software like someone's in for their second bullet and we were like in level three I think we're level four it wasn't very long in the turn maybe we were playing an hour now and 15. and it said Michael Adamo eight he was in for eight bullets in like an hour so you're absolutely right you know somebody who plays that you know live by the sword die by the sword style it's not for the faint of heart to say the least so we talked about the leak of loaning money a little bit earlier maybe it's not even a leak necessarily but I realized because I get a lot of comments on this channel some people have all sorts of leaks and they struggle with plugging them whether they be playing poker strategy whether it's partying too much whatever they have problems so I'm wondering if you ever had any sort of major leak that could have derailed you as a person or poker player and how did you fix it I've never had any I would say probably the season right right when season one of WPT right when was that oh 2002 2000 okay so season one really you know this big new thing this poker's on TV everyone's like whoa this is great you know I thought maybe you know I would be one of the prominent figures and on the show and you know make some final tables so I learned one of my leaks and I and I actually made rules for myself after the fact we go to these different stops right go to Atlantic City all right let's go have some drinks we'll go to the bar have fun with people shoot the if you will and now it's like six a.m I'm like drunk I go to sleep and experiment starts at noon and I show up and by two o'clock I'm just like in a spot where the guy bats and I'm like okay so I'm just reducing his range and I'm part of my calculation is like he might have this but also if I call and lose I can go to sleep so wasn't ideal so what I essentially I made rules for myself right after that because I realized like I sabotaged myself I didn't give myself the best opportunity I wasn't I wasn't behaving like a professional right so I said okay night before tournaments no alcohol whatsoever no going to dinner with people to tempt myself stay in my room get eight hours of sleep make sure I'm eating well and you know really really focused like I'm supposed to and in season two you know I did I had like back-to-back wins essentially I think it was season two and three I don't remember but like yeah I started to do really really well and part of it was just taking it seriously you know but it it had sometimes in order for leaks to really scream at you they have to sort of scream at you you know you sort of have to hit rock bottom to a certain degree and realize like I just blew this whole season and this was a good opportunity I thought for me to sort of make a name for myself in poker and instead I'm just at the bar at six in the morning with a bunch of people hey would you rather be the champion or at the bar at night time you kind of get to pick to some extent yeah so I think a lot of people will hear that and they'll think okay imagine I have the exact same week they go out and they go party after the tournament but these are more recreational players who go to Poker to have fun like you said right they go to the World Series they play a tournament they want to go hang out with their friends next thing you know at 6am and they do this maybe once every four or five months and they don't think it's that big of a deal but at the same time it is a big deal and they're squandering their opportunities and I wonder if they either just don't care about poker as much as they think they do or they're unaware of their leak or I don't know I'm always trying to help these people improve their skills right and I think a lot of people just really don't have their priorities right you realize your priority was not to hang out and have fun all night your priorities to win at poker period so it's two words clear intention is what it was what I call it and something that I sort of learned and studied you know it's an emotion it's an EQ type buzzword and essentially what it is is before you go to this tournament what is your intention for this tournament like getting absolutely clear write it out whatever the case may be okay my intention is to go have fun cool then do what you're doing if that's the case great if you're saying my intention is to do really well in this tournament and focus on doing my best and I believe that will be fun right totally different totally different statement and now what I would do is I'd create a road map what sort of game plan what behaviors are conducive to me being aligned with what I State my with my stated intention right so if I go to Mississippi and I say I'm going to go there and I'm going to win the WPT right is drinking the night before conducive to that no is booking a flight on day three no is you know not sleeping no all those things are not so if I so what I try to do is make the intention clear figure out what behaviors will work stick with those and I know that if I stick with my behaviors in the long run that's gonna work out and obviously sometimes I still don't win the tournament which is okay but as long as I see as I look back and I say okay if I didn't win the tournament what worked what didn't work okay what worked is okay I went to bed at a reasonable hour I didn't party et cetera Etc what didn't work I don't know maybe it was distracted maybe I was on the phone too much things like that and then I will adjust that for the next one and sort of recreate a new kind of intention statement with a little road map of what specific keys I need to stick to and then when it's over if you didn't succeed or didn't do it look back at your checklist and then you can sort of point to why right sometimes it'll be because you got Aces crack whatever but ask yourself if you did all the right things be proud of that be proud of the fact that you stuck to your guns you did what you said and enjoy the process I always recommend poker players get a hobby that is not so results oriented or full of variants like poker is right and things like going to the gym pretty good hobby because you can kind of control the results within reason right or just being living a healthy lifestyle you know going to bed on time eating right when you're playing poker these are things you can definitively control and if you do them right you should be happy even if poker does not go well because poker's not gonna go well a lot of the time how it goes yeah so that's the hard part right so like if you set an intention for example I want to lose 20 pounds in the last six months right like kind of like what Shaun deeb is doing right so that's that's very easy and it's very analytically easily driven right because you can say okay this is the goal this is what I will need to do to get there and you can follow that road map right I don't think that's going to be easy well no I understand but then you know for 20 pounds at six months it's doable right sure so if you follow the you know you follow the steps you get there obviously you'll have some side tracked issues maybe you get sick or whatever the case can be but that's one where you can definitively say I did everything right and I achieved the goal right poker doesn't quite work like that but it doesn't mean the process doesn't work right because you can do everything right and still lose and that's incredibly frustrating but all you can I mean in my opinion is the way I approach all I can really do is focus on the on my behaviors and my actions and my own checklist and ask myself am I doing all the things that I said so if I said going into the World Series I'm going to watch two hours of Poker I'm gonna study and all that stuff and I do all that and I do everything right and I get all the sleep and it's a bad World Series in terms of results I'll look back and say what worked what didn't right okay I did all the things I said well what more can I add is there anything else that I can look at that I can improve upon now every year I look to improve upon things and I've got ideas for this year even in terms of you know subtle things I want to improve upon you're always improving that's how you stay at the top I suppose right you don't get happy with your current situation you're always trying to do better yeah you know people ask me now like the question you know how would I do against the version of myself in 2004 right in 2004 I won everything I was winning out I won WBT Player of the Year World Series player of the year I won like 4.4 million in tournaments and the biggest event was 10K you know I was crushing it right but having said that back then my Edge against the field was drastic I was much better than everybody else okay today I'm not today I'm you know amongst you know the best but there are plenty of players better and you know I'm in that group and I don't have as big of an edge however the me now would absolutely destroy that old man that old me in today's climate again High sticks poker games has no chance to win right and that's hard for people to understand in terms of like how the game's evolved and how you have to keep evolving with it is that not kind of a negative towards the future of high stakes poker then if you are now just as good as every other good player and you know plus or minus a few percent because that means there's essentially no Edge right there is an edge right so because all you know here's the thing you're gonna have in these fields you're gonna have some players that are not professional right so let's say for example you had a field of 40 players okay 35 pros and five bad players that are definitely like losers okay so those five players will lose money right maybe the top 10 Pros who thought they were good enough to win maybe they don't right so now you leave about 20 to 25 guys we'll all make money to different varying degrees right now this falls apart when you don't have those five that's the fear what happens when those five lose their money or lose their interest well what we're seeing I mean I look at the Triton today the trident's going on right now there's a 25k going on in Cyprus they have 150 players being actually more interest in a wider group of people who want to get involved in the high stakes poker so as of right now poker's hot you know but again there'll be Ebbs and flows in that because generally speaking people don't enjoy losing right so if you lose consistently over and over and over without any sort of wins or winning moments he can turn you on the game when you're like yeah I hate this I'm sick of it all right we're almost out of time I'm inspired by Rob Young's speed round the other day did with Jason Coons let's do a speed round answer these questions quickly if you do not mind okay what means more to you today World Series poker bracelets World Series of Poker player of the year or profit World Series poker player of the year does anyone want it three times yet I sort of did but then expect it from me oh well you got to try again I guess how many people do you think will be will be in this year's Main Event 2023 for those watching and listening later I think it will be two I don't know remember what the all-time record was but 200 more than the all-time record that's confidence do you really do think poker Assad huh I do everyone watching let us know in the comment section below if you think it'll be more or less who is a player that we may not know who we should make sure to follow this summer um let's go with Jesse Lonas good young player when you go to the World Series what is your favorite snack food to eat during the day where can we buy it because I know it's not a regular stores it's definitely going to be chocolate variable forms of chocolate give me all put it in my veins let's go what is your favorite poker game to play studied or better but I prefer playing a full mix of games like dealer's choice in a dealer's Choice game what's your least favorite game to play I can't tell you because everybody will call it [Music] well tell me who would always call it who's the toughest mixed game opponent you will play against I would say in dealer's Choice Adam Friedman is very Adept at uh playing all the games well and figuring out what you don't and calling that who's been your toughest No Limit opponent recently recently toughest No Limit because there's a lot of tough opponents right yeah that's a tough one oh this is my toughest species there's definitely names no foxes up there oh it's foxy Foxon likes to make you put money in the pot Fox and uh you know he's intense for sure yeah he used to be a little bit too insane but I think he's gotten like a little bit more tight aggressive and that's made him substantially better I think because now he's not drastically over bluffing yeah I just think he's overall good like period like he's yeah I think he's I like his style I like his approach I play very differently than he does but I admire it from afarl what is your favorite hand to stack people with it's got to be six four suited oh all right nice one they never see that one coming who's going to win the Stanley Cup well I picked the Dallas Stars before the sleep so playoffs started so I'll stick with that you still like him yeah I think this still probably win all right who is your favorite person to watch play televised poker today Phil Hellmuth buy a mile I sit there with popcorn just hoping somebody actually beat some hand and then watch it on watch watch the rant unfold it's hilarious I don't think a lot of people necessarily know that Phil's rants are not malicious yeah a lot of people internally vent and they say a lot of things in their brain it's a freaking idiot but just Phil does he just has that he just says it out loud he's got no filter and hypothetical No Limit event would you rather be allowed to never raise post swap or have to use Alan Kessler's pre-flop strategy on every hand throughout the tournament say the first part again no rate no raising post swap or Alan Kessler pre-flop strategy I I don't raise pre post swap anyway so that's fine that's my style anyway but I don't want it you're the next Alan Kessler we heard it here in five words or less what makes Poker such a great game level Fair Unbound level Fair competition for all thank you very much for coming on I appreciate it where do you want to direct the traffic here all the people here what do you want them to go check out to learn more about you or the things that you were involved with currently well I'll tell you what guys once the World Series poker starts you can check out my channel on YouTube and I do a Daily World Series of Poker Vlog so if you yeah I don't know you can just put my name in and I'm sure my YouTube channel comes out so subscribe to that you'll get one in the morning like clockwork every day um throughout the entire Series so about seven weeks how much effort does it take to make that It's actually an insane clip especially given you're playing poker all day every day well the good news is I obviously going through the editing the way we set it up is I have a vlog phone which is essentially a knife which is just an iPhone it goes to an iCloud all the clips that I shoot go into the Vlog so I don't have them edit anything I don't like shoot eight minutes of something and go okay make that I only shoot the 30 seconds and that's what goes in for the 12 seconds and so then I have my guy Christian sort of set it up with the music we have a team in Korea who overnight it's daytime there so they're all in the office they Spruce it up and when I'm asleep I wake up in the morning it's already done you got it figured out all right well make sure you check out Daniel's YouTube channel I have some interaction this summer let's hope you win if you lose that's okay too I wish you the best of luck thank you for being such an amazing Ambassador for poker and good luck at the series all right Bud appreciate it good luck to you too thank you

Channel: Jonathan Little - Poker Coaching

Views: 62,054

Keywords: Daniel negreanu, poker strategy, poker interview, Kidpoker, poker tips, poker podcast, Negreanu, poker advice, world series of poker, Online, poker, ranges, solvers theory, tournament, wsop

Id: hyY7cdzCGo8

Length: 58min 44sec (3524 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023