Well, how do you get good at poker how about let's do that
400 hey, I'm Andrew Hales. Welcome to another edition of chatting with today. I'm here with Chris
Hello. Yeah, thank you for being here. You just jump right in huh? It's just my process
I guess I'm a professional poker player professional poker player
For how long?
informally since I was 18 and
I'm 21 now. So it's been my primary source of income for
Three years Wow
The house always wins, but not with you. What's that? Or I guess that's not a house thing
It's a it's between people right right pokers, really the only beatable game. Yeah only casino, right?
All the other ones you lose that you know, like Vegas wasn't built on on. Where's how does the house?
Profit then they take a percentage of the money that I make. Oh wow
So when I beat other people I pay them what's called a rake
Which is like they take one chip out of the pot that I win every time
Did you go to college or anything or did you always know you were gonna do this? No, no, I
I was in school in Canada and my plan was to go to Vegas for the summer just as a summer
Job type thing and then I recognized a famous player and I went up to him and I was like, hey, I'm Chris
I just moved here
And he gave me his number and we started doing coaching one-on-one like private coaching
I'm gonna strategy and stuff. Yeah, he sort of took me under his wing and
gave me a spot at
his company and
Now I work with them and well I never went back. Here. We are. Well, how do you get good at poker? Oh
Man, I mean it's it's it's like any other
High skill sort of trade. There's a long long process. Yeah
Like a lot of people come to Vegas to try it to do this and and fail
Yeah, I mean just in the time that I've been there I've seen a lot of people
Come and go broke and then leave
Why do people fail either they're just not good enough or?
They have too many life leaks life leagues. Yeah, like they bet sports and get rekt or lose a lot in the pits
like a lot of my good friends are buried in sports like
hundreds of thousands of dollars
Okay, but they're they're good winning poker players professionals, but twenty-one now, you're just living the dream
It doesn't always feel that way I mean I
Wouldn't really recommend
This to anybody oh why it's incredibly stressful
The the swings are just unavoidable and
Pretty soul-crushing. I'm good. I'm a pro and I lost for all of November and all of December
Like my year as a whole is an upward trajectory, but I just got wrecked
And that's like at the end there are long periods where you just go you can just go to work. It's not stable
No, not at all. What a so how much I mean, do you care to share how much you make on average? Yeah. Sure
about
that the stake level I play now like
$50 an hour Wow
But I've spent like 20k on my education and III think that it will take about as long
in poker to make as much as you would in any other
Field does that make sense? Yeah, like a doctor, you know, like it would take eight years
to make yeah, honestly to make look like
200 an hour it would probably take about the same amount of time. Yeah
It's kind of a consistent. Look at $10,000 10,000 hour rule thing. Yeah. Yeah, like I I have
3,600 hours at the table or in counting. Yeah, I track it all. Oh wow
Probably another thousand just studying, you know
What books you recommend?
It the field moves so quickly
That I don't really think any books are very good. The field moves. What do you mean principles or any goals? Mmm, not really?
Not at poker. Okay. It's not like like the rules of a game change. No the rules say the same
It's not like it's not like Go Fish
there are basically like so many combinations of things that could potentially happen that for for the majority of
The time that the game has existed. It's been beyond our comprehension
until
Computers catch up so recently in like 2015. These things called solvers came out that sort of take in all the data and
spit out an optimal strategy for different scenarios and
They take days to
To solve these these problems. Hold on
Solvers what a solver they they figure out different
Formulas to win they take in like a lot of probabilistic data, which as humans were not built - okay
So it's saying like we're we're getting people are getting better at getting better at it. Yeah evolving
Yeah, every every year there's new strategy. Yeah, it's it's infinite like any sport well
Kind of sorta. Yeah, so you you're paying for school. You're still going to school. I'm not still going to school
Oh, okay. You think he'll do this forever? I don't know. It's I love it
The reason I do it is because I love it. You know, it's it's it's fun
I love the lifestyle, but it's really taxing blackjack and craps you the
House will always win right but over the long term, right you can win in a day or a week or a month
but yeah, so that's
You can't like become a professional blackjack player
No, a lot of people will disagree with me on this but I mean not not in a practical sense. Yeah
because
Sure, you could learn how to count cards and generate a tiny little edge for yourself and that's illegal, right?
No, it's it's legal by count cards. Yeah. Oh that's legal
But the casinos can ban you anyway, okay, because they're a private business. So yeah, you can learn to count cards
It'll give you a tiny little edge
Really small edge like two percent. Hmm, right?
So for every hundred dollars you bet if this is if you're really good you could make like two bucks. So you're risking a hundred
To win
$2 and you'll have huge swings. Yeah enormous swings and by the time you make any money, they're gonna ban you anyway
So it's not it's not sustainable
Okay, whereas with poker you just you beat the other people in the game
Yeah, I guess is just a few tips on getting better. Like how do you get better yourself?
Yeah, the way I got good was by finding people better than me
I think my coaches are some of the best in the world at
Live poker specifically. Well, it's a mixture of luck and having a poker face, right? There's no luck
No luck involved. There's variance. So like unlikely things can happen to you. This is why there's no money in in chess
Like the best player will just win every single time. There's no there's tiny bit of variation just in like mental state
But nothing will happen that has anything to do with with chance Wow. So I'll give you I'll give you like a
Simple example. Yeah, I say well flip a coin and you say alright
I'll pay 10 if it lands on heads and you pay me 5 if it lands on tails
I'd be like, yes
I would love to play that game with you. Right and I mean it could land on I forgot what I said tails
Whichever one where you win five dollars five times in a row. Okay, and you win $25, right? I
Don't I don't see that as luck. It's just variance. That's a winning bet for me
right because 50% of the time I'll win ten and
50% of the time you will win five
So that that would we call that a positive evie
Bet they either don't understand that. It's losing or don't care. Okay, right
It's that's a really simple example right that
Everyone would understand but in poker, it's much more complicated like how you figure out
The Evie expected value of a thing is much more complicated. So people either don't care which are the Recreational
Who are who sustain me or?
or or mute off them
Yeah, or people that don't know what like the bad regs the way I explain it to tune on poker people
yeah, and I think this is like
pretty cool that I get to talk to the mainstream outside because poker is a very like isolated Miche sort of thing is
It's like day trading
It's a it's a marketplace of equities where people set a price and then people that are losing
pay more than the equity is worth and
People that are winning pay less than the equity is worth. So like if you can make winning trades
then
You can make a living but there's gonna be huge swings, right?
so like
If there's an 80% chance a company will increase in value and you sink like half your net worth into it you could still lose
20% of the time
A lot of math. Yeah, where you go to math and high school. And yeah, I was pretty good at math
it's also a lot of like human interaction to like people will give a
lot away
People aren't good at hiding things like can eat
Can you tell them someone's has a bad and I mean it's kind of a high-stress situation, right?
Because people are risking a lot of money and you're allowed to talk to people during hands
So a lot of Ragsdale bit of social engineering. Whoa. Yeah, it's it's a lot
It's a lot of what do you what are some things you say?
Like so what are you guys, you know, honestly anything is better than nothing, right?
Even me like I'm I have a ton of hours. I know the strategy if I'm sending like a huge bluff
I'm still gonna be nervous a lot of the times people don't even look at me
There was a hand when I first got to Vegas where I was just super hyped on being there and I sent this
Probably the biggest Bluff at that time. So this is like I
Don't know maybe a year ago, I bet like
$1,200 on the river which at the time was like a lot of like a big Bluff
It was against this other pro and if she actually she's pretty popular was against Marlee. Hmm
She's a vlog or two, and if she even just looked over at me for two seconds. She would have seen me like choking
Choking like I mean, I was feeling your energy visibly sweating. Oh, all right. Yeah Wow a couple days ago
there's a spot where I was playing an aria and
Some guy put out a river bet the river is the last it's the last car like the fifth quarter. Yeah
Yeah, because he puts out about on the river and I don't beat a lot of hands and I'm over simple
I'm simplifying this but I don't beat a lot of hands and
It's it's a pretty natural fold based on the strategy
But I'm like holding my cards ready to fold if I fold he wins
Yeah, I'm like right holding my cards like this and I'm like you show me if I fold show me if I fold
Oh, yeah, and he's like, yeah. Yeah, I'll show you if you fall
All right call
Because right he wouldn't say that if you wanted me tack
all right, he would just say yeah, he would either stay silent or
Say no I'm not gonna show you so wait, so you did fold. No you didn't
I just I just made it look like I was above what's cult calming again. So I match his bet so he was correct
Okay, so that you did you win?
Yeah, I told him my hand and started engaging with him trying to get some sort of sense of what he wanted from me
Yeah, and if you can lock in on what they want you to do just do the opposite and you'll win
Well here let's play can we play a little bit?
Sure. Okay. Do you want like strategy?
yeah, well, I just
Let's just let's just get going and we'll we'll see if I can beat you
It's Tilda raised right you fold because you have shitty cards, right? You're gonna raise to bluff it
Whatever. Yeah, it's a 40. This would be 40 greens or 25. Okay
Like that. Yeah, right. So then we go
Alright, so if you go first you can either check or bet um
Mm-hmm. I
Mean this this is not a hand that I would ever
Play like this in real life, but you can see the mechanics of how it works. Yeah, yeah
All right
Check all right. So there's 150 in the pot. Okay
Just acting like you have good cards right check
I have nine, huh? Okay, so you were right. I
Normally I would just fold to the 10th. Okay. Let's go again pretty fly right anyway and don't don't tell me what you have
All right
Okay
And when you watch this on TV, can you see everyone's cards? Yeah. Whoo, that's fun
so you go first you can either you can fold or
Call the five or raise to some
call
Call the five, right? So I've got it. All right
All right, sorry fifty-fifty
Like that
However, you want to do it could be two greens. These are the 25
25
105 spot. Okay, cool
Yeah
Hmm you raised I bet 65
Okay sighs yeah
Oh
Yeah, so that kind of gives it away that my cards aren't that good?
Unless you're trying to make it seem right check if it's on it's on me, okay?
Do you have to say call when you're playing now you can just put the chips, okay
And then like what's the thing for check just like just like this, okay
All in Wow sounds like you have good cards I
Could fold probably save a lot of money for 85 mm if you'd like to call
There are no straights available, you can't have it straight I can't no
You're right I
Think I'm gonna fold
I've talked to bear okay it so if I yeah if there was a
Seven probably plays not exactly like it's like this was a six then I would have a great hand. Yeah, okay
All right next
So that hand probably plays exactly like that it really I know all you had was two I numbers I had talked to her
Right, so I had a very nines of hurricanes
All I'm doing huh
All right, what did you have nine six
So the really bad hands you can't make money plane and you just have to hold it. Okay
How often do you fold on average like 2/3 of the time Wow you you just don't ever play well
Like mm 2/3 of the time
33% don't even play
Voluntarily put money in pot is pretty high. Like I play more hands than most most regs. Oh, I got a really good. Yeah
So are we talking how about let's do that?
400 yes, pull your blacks
Really good. This would be crazy for a standard opening raise would be like 40. Yeah, because
This allows me to play pretty perfectly
Like I can just fold my bad hands and yeah, but money was my video
I'll do it for the I'll do it for the stream. Okay?
All right, I gotta get here - okay
You go. Um, sure yeah, I'll match it
Well, I I don't even think I can yeah, but it would be all the rest. Okay, so I'll just
I will do this. Yeah
Oh boy, there's no
Oh, you're right, yes, so now what do we do? So we just we just go straight to this just two more. All right
Oh
I
Have 10 King so you barely beat me. Yeah
Because I have a pair of aces. Yeah, okay, so we both had good hands. So I lose. Yeah, I don't have any more money
So wait, so how long do games last
What's the longest you've sat at a table I played
41 hours. I was 18 what? Yeah, no, no bad. Oh, thanks
Did you did you eat yeah, like how does that work?
Did you drink
Did you take adderall? Like how did you stay up for 41 hours? This is loved it. You never slept Wow. I
Can barely stay awake for 24 hours. I mean, I guess what's the most money you've ever made it at once
I'm one sitting I guess. Yeah, like
Okay, that's that's nothing compared to like my coaches
Matt Goerke is is the most notable of the people that I work with and he's played
Many million dollar so like that there would be a million or more in the middle. I
Think he's made like 2.5 million today Wow
Maybe like eight ten hours a day on average probably seven two tonight Wow
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