For Love or Money? A Poker Documentary (2019) - full transcript

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.

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.

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.

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.

47th this year.

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.

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.

Ew, Liam here with pair aces.

I had ace king,
with the king of hearts.

- Chris... Wow! - 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.

Really? Wow,
he's just gonna flat call! Really!?

No way?!

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.

Sick. I mean he's...

He's fading it.

- He's fading the...
- He's gonna end up soul reading

them in this hand so hard.

And on the river...

it paired the board
an off suite seven.

And...

...he...

...bet...

I think he...

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...

Wow!

What a boss, dude, I...

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

What the hell!?

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.

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

with queen-high.

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

How are you?

Good.

Twenties unfortunatley.

And your player's card, ok?

And your id.

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.

Ok... there you go.

Good luck to you!

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.

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?

For a 22 and a 27 year old kid

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

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?

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.

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...

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.

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."

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.

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.

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!

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.