Professional Poker Part 2: Underground Games and Home Games

Show notes

Professional Poker, Part 2: Underground Games, Risk and How to Win at Home

Randy Lorensen spent years playing poker like a job. In part two, Dr. John Oberg asks him about underground poker games, nosebleed stakes, the darker side of gambling, and how to win your next home game.

Randy talks about the stepdad who raised him and why he doesn't have an addictive personality. He describes playing several nights a week, home games that take a rake, and what happens when games get pushed underground. He explains how to spot cheating, why many winning players still go broke, and what it's like to watch people lose tens of thousands of dollars in a night.

Then come the stories from Vegas and private games, and why big money attracts bad people. Those experiences made security one of his main criteria for choosing a game.

For home-game players, the strategy is simple: play tight, choose good starting hands, try not to be all in, and let math be your friend. He closes with what poker taught him about money management and staying calm.

How to Win at Home Poker Games, and What Pros Know About Risk

What you'll discover:

What underground poker games are really like
Nosebleed stakes, and why many winning players still go broke
Spotting cheating and choosing safe games
Stories of big money and close calls
Home-game strategy: play tight and let math be your friend
Lessons from poker on money management and staying calm

Gambling involves risk. If gambling is a problem for you or someone you know, call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Timestamps

[00:00] Welcome: Randy's poker story, part 2
[01:11] His stepdad, and why he doesn't have an addictive personality
[03:18] Playing poker like a job
[04:24] The sportsbook, and home games that take a rake
[06:28] Underground games keep getting bigger
[07:31] Nosebleed stakes
[08:35] What happens when games go underground
[09:37] Spotting cheating
[11:44] When things go wrong in illegal games
[13:55] The pros, and the mind games people play
[16:04] Why many winning players still go broke
[17:08] Feeling guilty about beating weak players
[19:16] A sports bet and a 4 a.m. lesson
[23:30] Craps, casinos and losing interest in Vegas
[25:37] Bluffing takes a disregard for money
[26:42] Watching people lose tens of thousands in a night
[27:48] The Mississippi straddle, and players who are "good for the game"
[29:57] Giving the impression you're a gambler
[32:04] Leaving with a pocket full of cash: a scary ride in Vegas
[37:23] Big money attracts bad people: choosing safe games
[39:35] Tournaments, and a robbery
[43:49] Getting serious about security
[44:53] Keeping games small
[48:04] How to read other players
[51:12] Beating low-stakes home games: play tight and let math be your friend
[53:17] Starting hands and the flop
[54:23] Never wanting to be all in
[55:26] Draws, sets and tricky players
[57:31] Lessons: money management and staying calm
[59:32] Wrap-up

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About this episode

Dr. John Oberg hosts, and his co-host Randy Lorensen is the guest, talking about his years as a professional poker player. This continues Ep 13. (Host bios are on the host pages linked below.)

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Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:07] abundance I'm Dr. John Oberg back here as always with my co-host Randy Lorensen Randy's the guest today today is poker part two good morning hey how are you doing great I'm excited about one today I you know I'm excited for a couple Reasons I'm excited because we last time we talked about poker we didn't get into some of the what I would call the harder part of the conversation the the under belly and uh of of the kind of the gambling world and what people see when they're in there I think I think that'll be an interesting lens into uh in the world you were in for a bit and then I also hoped we could talk today about how to win the home game you and I had a conversation several years ago about how to win the home game and I thought it'd be kind of a fun way for us to wrap up after otherwise maybe um just super interesting potentially darker not dark but part of the world so should we dive in there let's go yeah and and the reason that this became um a hesitant interest for me um we've talked before my my my dad died when I was really young that was my stepdad who raised me U my biological father left when I was very very young um addicted to drugs gambling and we reconnected my biological father and I much later in life um didn't have much of a relationship to speak of but I did hear some of the stories of like him getting you know beat up as a poker shill outside of a casino in La losing all of his teeth you know I never really knew what happened uh didn't process that you know really and so um really shocking to me like that was like a like out of a you know Godfather movie or something but for you that might not have been something that was unfamiliar in your world even that didn't happen to you I don't think but I I didn't even know what a poker shell was and so I think talking about that part of the world um you were there you saw it yeah definitely um and I was I was maybe a little more sheltered than some people because I just don't I think I'm blessed enough that I don't have an addictive personality yeah uh so I think that benefited me and Austin Texas is a lot softer than certain parts of the world I mean I think there's things that people get away with in Austin that would you know get their kneecaps broken in the Northeast yeah or even Houston and San Antonio are much rougher than Austin and remind us real quick what what was your first like real like your first real professional poker game in your mind we know how you got in there we had that last episode in a way that was it right I mean it was it was sitting around my friend's table playing $20 tournaments where I could make a few hundred bucks a night okay um it was you know the off seon of the Energy Efficiency business and I pretty quickly started playing for a living yeah like really even even small games I was good enough that I could make a living pretty quickly okay and how many nights a week oh God when I started playing it was almost seven nights a week for whatever eight years I mean I played all the time it was I I worked at a lot like a job yeah and so what was your first exposure to kind of some of the darkness of that world I think it was even in those early days there's we would go over to my to my friend riondos and he would Host this game and it was started out as the same group of people and then people just started bringing people and bringing people and bringing people and these are Underground games in Austin but it was just it was a home game it was at his house and as people brought people poker just naturally gambling it brings a seedier type individual and all of a sudden I was just around more people that were on probation or selling drugs or who knows who knows what they were into but the higher I went up as I started playing bigger games it was like in Vegas when I'm sitting at the bagio every day almost everybody was a sports better almost everybody and I remember where we played I think I might have mentioned this last time the sports book was right there and you 30 seconds from the table that I'd be at you could be at the window of the sports book placing a sports B yet all these people called a bookie because they didn't want to put up the money they wanted credit instead of putting up the cash and it was I don't know there's there's a lesson there right like there there's a reason they're doing that and probably because you know they can't afford to put up the cash most likely and so how so so you're at Cash games we we you heard the story of how you got invited and how how do you get invited to the bigger cash games just someone brings you along you talking are you talking in a casino or local like everyone knows where the bagio is like everyone can get into that game you just have to check you know you yourone just put your name on the list yeah yeah yeah so but but like for the for the larger home games I mean I assume they want people with a big enough bank roll but who aren't that great a player as the ideal candidate so it's going to depend on the game some games you just need to be a warm body right you just have to have a pulse because they want players and they're taking a rake and like these home games in Austin so if you and I go play home play at my house or your house and we have friends over and we play perfectly legal yeah right gambling is legal in Texas not all states but as long as the house doesn't benefit home games though the person hosting it was definitely doing it for financial benefit they're taking a rake which means part of every pot went to the house yeah which technically made it illegal right Y and so there's a whole bunch of these games and cities all All Over America wherever people are listening from famous movie Molly's game I think was one of the things that kind of for for those of us who aren't in the world might have made it more main stream so that's a very big game yeah big games a lot of times are harder to get into sometimes you just have to be have the money to get into it but a lot of times they're looking for people that they call Fish who are people that are not very good that are going to lose money uh sometimes they're just looking for people that gamble like I used playing a couple of home games the primary prerequisite was you wanted to go gamble and the they wanted the game bigger and bigger and bigger to I mean there there's an addiction there right there there's a rush and there's when you first start playing and you lose $10 or $20 it hurts and then I remember where $10,000 lost didn't really hurt right you become numb to it I mean you become numb to it I hope I wouldn't I think everybody does right I think this is what I was saying because I think most people hope that right but you don't start there most people don't start there yeah and but you start is you get in bigger games you know I I used to play in a game where one night I looked around there were nine people at the table and I was the only one that wasn't a bookie everybody else was a bookie and they were taking the money they made you know taking Sports bets and they were using it to play poker and gambling with it at you know nose bleed Stakes um okay what's nose bleed Stakes you know where people can win or lose tens of thousands of dollars in a night yeah I mean maybe more right I that's in the gambling world that's there's way bigger games but for the average person that's real money yeah okay right and so the fir the first bit of Darkness you said was when I think it was even in those early days just y meeting people that were mixed up in things that I just never associated with right I didn't run in those circles uh I'd never you know I was far from an angel or a perfect child but I never made any big mistakes or you know got got in any real trouble yeah uh so seeing some of that and then just the more I played the more drug dealers the more pimps the more bookies the more you know all those things I would see they would be around yeah right which you know I I'm about as libertarian and living let live but the fact is when those things are pushed underground and they're in the black market they you know attract certain type of people and a lot of them were really nice you get you know they're were fine to play with but you know who knows what was going on away from the table Yeah well and you might be one of the least judgmental people I've ever met in my life which I think makes it easier for you to be in that room right and then I mean did it ever get to a place where you felt uncomfortable no I I remember going to Houston and playing and cheated I didn't know how I was losing and I wasn't really used to losing and I was losing to players that weren't very good and it was probably it was probably just bad luck right it was probably the numbers were out but I was really paranoid there were cameras in the ceiling or there was just I just something felt off to me and usually if my instincts are there probably something was off I probably was being cheated so like something that where they could see your cards and know know what you had I don't have any idea I mean I look there was a game here in town in Austin that I used to play and this happened while I was living out in Vegas but there was a lawyer who used to have commercials all over like an ambulance Chaser lawyer and he went to the game was in cahoots with the dealer he bought a certain deck of cards that had microchips in all the cards wore some kind of an earpiece that you know I'm hearing all this secondhand after the fact but this guy just kept winning and he would play Odd ways right like there was just there were odd things that would happen and he would win hands that didn't really make sense and it turns out eventually they caught him he was cheating and the this thing in his it would just say the five seat is going to win this hand or have the best hand and he would know to stay in a hand despite all evidence and odds at that point you know would tell you you shouldn't and he would win he he won a lot of money out of that game and it wasn't that big of a game here in town so things like that you know things like that definitely happen I mean Ironically in the gambling world it's I think even the people that aren't so honest elsewhere a lot of them are honest in gambling like there's a there's sort of a gamblers code that it it's very frowned upon looked down upon it's not part of the culture and there's people that don't take that seriously because there's real money at stake and people they do get addicted people you know addiction is a real thing how how did that microchip situation play out I don't think anything really happened he just kind of got away with it right right um like I said if that happened you know if you were in New York City or Boston or Rhode Island or anywhere in the Northeast I don't think that would play out well right like I think you know there'd be serious consequences in Houston or San Antonio you might end up in a ditch somewhere yeah right like that wouldn't that wouldn't play out in most parts of the world in Austin it Austin was really soft compared to other places yeah what are some of the dark things you saw that maybe surprised you as you went into the world world you know the ones that bothered me the most were people that the addiction got to be too much for them um you know I had a friend married you know kids I don't want to give away too much information I don't want to dox this guy but had a had a good corporate job and but had a job where he didn't really need to work and he played poker more than I did and I was playing for a living and he was a losing player and he ended up eventually he lost that job I'm sure it he had a very comfortable lifestyle you know and he was broke he just took all of his savings all of his stocks and lost them and there's a thing the thing that I don't fully understand you might understand better than me there's def itely a group of people in poker that want to lose and I think this is in gambling whether it's sports betting or people that play craps or Blackjack there are people that I think it's a worth they don't think they're worthy of it and they play until they lose it's it's a real thing and it took me a long time to see that or understand it but once I saw it I kind of couldn't unsee it and I think this particular guy is like somehow yeah they just it's a relationship with money or their their relationship with their self probably more than money yeah and uh and so when Pros see someone like that is that that just becomes the meal ticket yeah it depends on the pro I I think a lot of people are unaware there's a lot of Pros that they're just they're just doing math yeah and they aren't I don't think a lot of them are that aware of what's going going on a lot of Pros are a little bit Hest um and I don't know that they're that socially aware a lot of times yeah right so those are the ones that in time started to bother me right is and I was unaware of them for a long time right people play never occurred to me they were playing with money that they couldn't afford to lose even though when I started I was you know pretty broke and I was playing with money that I couldn't really afford to lose but I won and for me if I would have lost right I would have just quit I would have just stopped playing but a lot of people it's not really a choice they lose and then when you gamble and I think this is no matter what Stakes there's a lot of little mental games that you have to overcome there's just think about maybe maybe it's poker maybe it's Blackjack maybe it's craps if somebody's down if they buy in for $200 and they're down 50 there's this desire to get back to even right and and all kinds of little mind games that people do that are not productive and are not helpful toward being a winning player in anything right because you're not making a decision based on in poker you're not making a decision then if the game's good or profitable or you should be there you're making a decision emotionally based on oh I gotta get back to even right or I bought in bought in for it playing the numbers right now you're playing the you're playing your the situation in your pot your own your own personal stack I guess yeah and people will gamble more they will they will make a call even though the odds are against them because they're trying to get to even or there's a lot of people just want the rush they want the juice right that you know I mentioned earlier if you're if you start out and 10 or $20 hurts that you lose gambling which a lot of people start there most people sure and pretty soon $1,000 doesn't make you feel anything well pretty soon it's 5,000 it's 10,000 it's they keep playing bigger and bigger and even I think this is why a lot of a lot of gamblers even winning poker players never really get ahead because they're just chasing that next Rush that next big thing um you know my drug use you know is next to nothing but it's what you hear about people that you know they do cocaine or hero and they're always chasing that next big rush trying to get that back right so before we started today we talked a little bit about the um how much makes you uncomfortable there was a whole conversation around that yeah so tell me more about that like well it's what we're just talking about right that you know you wanted to make a $1 bet and I was just like H like even if I go play a small home game I'm not going to play play well it's just it it bores me right like losing or winning or losing a couple hundred dollars I would almost rather just splash my chips around and lose part of it is I feel a little guilty beating up on people because it's so damn easy in a game like that it's it's it's even though I almost never play anymore it's unfair right like I'm I'm not playing the same game they're playing right so one I feel a little bit guilty but two I don't want to fold I just want to play pots and Gam and and whatever so by the way that's exactly how I play when I with friends yeah that's fine it's 20 bucks and I pay for the entertainment if I happen to win great that that and that is the healthy attitude right I mean that is the healthy attitude um but people that people that get addicted so let's talk about a maybe this is an easier analogy with a sports better right people if you bet $10 a game and at first you're excited and you but you bet $10 a game and it makes that game more entertaining whether you win or lose that's probably money well spent I could argue right but pretty soon if you have any kind of income $10 doesn't do it so you bet a 100 well when you stop carrying about a 100 and by the way some of the people that stop carrying about 100 100 is real money to them they might not be able to pay their rent but they don't get that Rush from a $100 bet anymore so they bet on whatever they bet on the Cowboys and the Cowboys lose and they need the rush in that entertainment and then they're betting 500 and they're betting a th000 and they inevitably end up betting beyond their means right that just sure it's it's where it goes with a lot of people um and I don't know why I just thought of this it's a little bit of a rabbit hole but this kid one time that you know kind of sort of tried to take him under my wing and he was good kid but little bit lost and he was betting on some school that I had never heard of in a basketball game one day he was like what's the line on that game and somebody told him and he was placing a bet and I said what are you doing why are you betting on that game he goes what do you mean I'm I'm placing a bet the basketball game right it's like a a Max school or something like that right some small college right Mountain Athletic Conference if you guys aren't following that one and he he says this and he go I said what is their mascot I don't know where are they located I don't know name one player on their team or name tell me anything about them or their coach he could tell me anything about him but he was placing a bet this is not logical right like cuz you you have to there's juice I mean the house has an edge on every bet you place right and I said why are you placing this bet I don't understand and he goes first action and even me being around this all the time I was like what the hell are you talking about first action he goes it's the first action of the day it's the this basketball game tips off earlier than any other game and it was like a 10:00 a.m. Central Time tip off or something or whatever right it was like 11 o' East Coast whoa so he was betting because it's the earliest possible moment in the day to bet something on basketball and here's the kicker I said what time I said you're going to be up till 4:00 5 6: in the morning what time you going to get up tomorrow I don't know 2 3 so the game's going to be over but he still every day he placed a bet on first action of the day even though he was sleeping through it that's a problem wow right like that's a that's that's where did he didn't see that as a problem well I think he know it's a problem yeah but people that smoke know it's a problem people that eat too much know it's a problem people that do drugs know it's a problem I mean not all but yeah yeah yeah I mean I think they know it's I mean I don't even think he was in denial right he knew it a problem but eding more than he could afford did um on the dark side of things did you I mean we talked about you know my biological father and what kind of happened there was that the type of thing you saw with any re like any any uh regularity which part I mean getting beat up the he clearly got beat up for a reason I and and I don't know what that reason was we could speculate but you know is that type of thing happen normally other than movies yeah I think again I was a little sheltered in Austin Texas in other parts of the country it's definitely a thing right like there's there is a Code of Ethics there's standards and you know like when you gamble you're supposed to pay your debts and but there's a lot of people that owe a lot of money to a lot of people that's a real thing there's people that you know I I learned to stop loaning money to people primarily because of Poker I've got a lot of people that I was trying to be nice them you know I got four or five people that owe me 10 15,000 and more that I'll never you know I'll just never see that money again sure and uh you know what are my options I go get a baseball bat and I break their knees right or I move on with my life I choose to move on with my life yeah but you know you see in the movies a lot of times it's the mafia or whatever else but they're not going to let that slide like there's most places people aren't going to let that slide so who knows what I mean it could have been any number of things um you know before we started I said something about somebody that was a really good player but they were broke yeah right I saw so many of these people and how can you be broke if you're a good player because it doesn't this is just like anything in life like you could make a million dollars a year at a career and be broke right I mean the US government brings in five trillion a year right but they spend seven or eight trillion a year but but if you're good at what you do playing poker I guess you can be broke by SPS using the sports bet the sports book or whatever else there's there's a life style that people get caught up into um the biggest they're called leaks in the poker world and most poker players have leaks if I had one it was craps craps is fun craps is you go in the casino everybody's laughing and having a great time and I liked to play craps a lot of energy yeah yeah yeah and I think I said this last time but when that is I went played poker one day went and played craps and lost God I forget now 10 or $20,000 went and played the next day came back and won like 80% of it back I want to say I lost like 20,000 this this first day and I won like 15 or 16,000 of it back the second day and it's time I was basically living at Caesar's Palace and I thought okay this is unsustainable idiot this is dumb you can't you can't do this because I can't give it all back to the casino and I just for the last couple years I just quit playing craps yeah and it was okay when I could bet $25 or I you know I could bet smaller amounts but if I had to bet thousands of dollars for it to be fun I just had to decide that I can't play anymore yeah now if I go to Vegas now I'll play but at the time and I was there every day I just had to do that but I don't think most people have the discipline and The Willpower to do that I knew a lot of people that made money playing poker but just like the government that brings in 5 trillion and spends seven or eight or the person that makes a million and spends 1.2 if you make a million a year playing poker but you spend you lose you lose a million a year playing craps and you have to live that doesn't work and now you're in debt yeah right or people there is a disass so this was in a way good for me we've talked about before that you know I grew up with money being something that was scarce and I still have a little bit of that mindset but poker helped me a a lot when you're when you're playing and you make a five or $110,000 bet that's a you know hell rather it's a regular bet I was going to say that's a bluff you're betting with nothing it takes a certain disregard for money that you have to develop yeah and that made me a little bit more of a free spender certainly than I was beforehand right but you know one of the guys I traveled with he wouldn't pack a dress shirt and if we would go out or go somewhere he would go to the Bernini store in the in the Forum Shops at Caesar's and buy a $500 shirt to go out for the evening right instead of packing one and then he would go home put in a closet and buy a new one the next time right um there was a lot of that if you're playing for thousands of dollars it's hard to put value on small amounts of money and that's just part of the culture but there's also for some people it's drinking and drugs and stri clubs were a big part of it and you know I watched a lot the strip club just wasn't you know thankfully that just wasn't my thing but I watched a lot of people below hell I've gone to a strip club and watched watched multiple people below 10 to 50,000 in a night it'd be really hard to have like a dissociation with money in one moment and then have a healthy discipline with it in the next moment like I could see how that would be difficult and hard did you ever get yourself into a situation was uncomfortable maybe you weren't in trouble with getting your you know knees knocked together but like did you ever get into a situation where like you just didn't want to be there or more than one um so the worst situation I ever got in this was after I stopped playing for a living I went back out to play the world series one year which is the big poker event in Vegas and I ended up in this big Omaha game it was PL it was It was a big not huge game but it was playing huge because of the people around the table and the amount of betting and there's a guy that sits down at the table big Mexican guy great sense of humor and he you know this this for people listening the blinds were five and 10 and you could have a Mississippi straddle this is kind of inside baseball but if Mississippi straddle means you straddled behind on the button and it was like a $25 Mississippi straddle that people had put on and that was supposed to be the extent of it but people started then putting on a $50 behind that in a 100 and this guy started putting on $800 every single hand which was against the rules but because we wanted to gamble the game was good we you know nobody's going to say anything and this game got out of hand I mean it was it was crazy so what that means is in a game where it should have been $25 minimum just a call all of a sudden it was $800 and it's Pot Limit so you could bet much more it the game got very very big we're playing you know multi th000 10,000 dollar pods and we played all night and I would very seldom drink when I was playing sometimes I'd have a beer here and there during the night like one maybe two because you playing for real money you needed to be sharp but these guys were what was known as good for the game and this guy was there and it became he had like a little Entourage around him in my mind I was fairly certain this guy was like cartel connected like that was the type of behavior you were seeing yeah and probably the only time but also very light just a laughing he made the game fun and the whole game and all of a sudden at a 1 two o'clock in the morning the waitress comes and he goes roundest tequila shots for everybody and I'd already had a beer or two because the game was it was a loose party game it was the atmosphere and sometimes you wanted to you don't want to be the guy that's no fun in the room yeah right you want to be part of that party because people will pay you off and it's almost like advertising in a business in fact in poker it's called advertising sometimes tell you what this means sometimes you play poorly and let people see it with the expectation that they will call later and they will pay you off if if you give the impression that you're a gambler then later on you can capitalize on that it's part of the strategy okay so you want to be part of the party and people were drinking at this game so I decided that it was in my best interest to do so and I probably even had two or three beers which was more than I would normally have certainly in a game that and he says round of tequila I didn't really want tequila so I convinced and and he was he called me what did he call me Mr Clean he calls me Mr Clean okay and uh and I said whoa whoa whoa whoa I'll do a shot with you and he was kind of across the table and we were laughing and joking back and forth and he was a real blustery pretty aggressive guy um and I said but I want mine vodka and he goes fine I don't care so everybody gets shots well well the waitress starts walking away and he yells at her AC hey wait come back here make it a double make them all doubles and he goes ah F that make them triples so she comes back with triple shots for everybody right in this big game pretty soon it's another round and another so at some point I gave her 25 or 50 bucks and I said look I don't care what you bring everybody else but from now on mine are water like I can't I mean I'm I'm drunk at this point Point yeah but I'm also well aware that I can't I don't want to leave this game because this game's amazing but I also don't want to get hammered pass over on I'm already about as drunk as I've been playing poker yeah so this goes and at some point I get up and go to the bathroom I come back from the bathroom and I meet this guy in the hall and the game had this game was this was entertaining there was a lot of drama and a lot of there were a lot of things going on but and I meet this guy and he goes ah Mr Clean we thought you'd left so we cashed out and I'm thinking know what I mean probably not a good sign usually if somebody cashes out because you leave it's because you're the bad player at the table but it was just we were fun having fun and joking and he goes where decided we're going to the strip club we're going to the to um Spearmint Rhino I said have fun I'm going to bed I'm like I'm registered for the noon tournament and this is 9 10:00 in the morning and I've got a noon tournament and I'm drunk right not that I've already registered for the day before right and he's like no no no we are too I'm registered too come on you're going with us somehow I get convinced to go to this tournament so I go back or go to the go to and again I don't even like strip clubs somehow I get convinced to go with these guys we get we're waiting outside the Rio which is where the World Series was back then I've got 80,000 in cash probably in my pocket and $100 bills and some of them are $5,000 chips but mostly $100 bill like I've got cargo shorts and I mean there's a huge bulge in the side it and I've already determined these guys are probably cartel but I also know I'm safe there's they want nothing from me I'm I'm actually not real concerned but in the back of your mind when you've made that connection and they were anyway he had this other friend with him that was really funny he was the jokester of the group but there was a whole anyway a whole group of them so we're outside he's got a limo coming and we're waiting and we're waiting and he's calling the limo and they're not here and finally he's like you know my car is right there we could just take that so we jump into this car and they've got the guy that they just his name's his name is Bobby and he's like the guy they [ __ ] on he's older than the rest of them and they just you can tell they talk down to Bobby all of them do they're like Bobby's driving Bobby's sober and Bobby takes down from the Rio heading west down Flamingo in a brand new charger still got stickers on the back and he's going like 90 miles an hour which Flamingo it's a 30 maybe a 40 I mean it's a residential street and he's going and they're like Bobby run that light and Bobby runs the light and I'm like holy [ __ ] I'm in the back seat lumped in I got 880,000 in my pocket with you know these guys around me and I'm like you know I said I'm pretty sure this is not the way to the Spearmint Rhino I'm pretty sure you got to get on the highway and go north from here and the guy that's in charge goes Bobby you idiot Mr Clean says you're going the wrong way turn this thing around Bobby just whips that thing around like does a you again breaking laws goes gets on the highway and they just keep going Bobby go faster and he now we're going like 100 miles hour down the highway right and my my heart's racing thinking about this right like I'm I'm anxious so at some point he goes Bobby rear end that SUV and Bobby's done everything they've told him to do Bobby pulls up like gets where it I literally think he's going to rear end the SUV but he doesn't he gets like inches from it and goes and they laugh and they have a good time anyway we park it's 10: 10:30 in the morning that's a bright light we've been up all night we walk into this place and these guys had called ahead they had a table set up with bottle service and there's bottles all over there's 20 girls waiting for us when we walk in the like literally waiting for us and and it was just so I'm now I'm sitting here like with this just not good not good life choices now everything turned out fine I stayed did you make it yeah I stayed for a little bit and I took an Uber or a cab or whatever I don't know if there were Ubers back then it was probably a cab but I took a cab back to the Rio I don't think I but I wasn't there very long and I got out of there but you know they weren't going to screw there was no reason for them to screw with me but if you think about they knew I had the money in my pocket right because I took chips from the table turned it into Cash and did it like if they would have wanted to you know to do something they could have but I have I trust my instincts a lot and turns out my instincts were at least right in this case so that's so that that's the worst situation I've been in by far but you know there there were two three games I played in in Austin where somebody ended up getting they got robbed and I wasn't there when they played let's come back to that in a minute let's take a break for a second we'll be right back listeners and we'll talk about some of the some of the things happened in Austin okay after the break so Randy just before the break you were mentioning some things that were happening Austin and after a crazy night in Vegas which I mean in Vegas you kind of expect things like that to happened the whole movie The Hangover was written about Vegas Austin Texas man it's that's not Vegas yeah it's but if there's that much money when there's big money it attracts bad people right like I I could became one of my main criteria for picking a game I would go to became security and did I feel safe and what kind of security did they have I preferred armed guards um plural at least one like somebody that was competent but then you have to have the right armed guards right because what if they're in on it right or something else so there was one particular security guard that I very much trusted in Austin um I will also say this is Texas and especially there's a lot of good old boys playing poker and that have the means to play in bigger games so the number of people carrying is yeah you got to have some balls to go hit a game with a lot of those people that you don't know I mean I I used to play in a game consistently So when you say hit a game you mean somebody coming and robbing rob a game yeah that I how much cash is it a big game well that changed where I used to play games where you know sometimes the average person had tens of thousands of dollars well if there's nine people at a table plus people waiting plus people that have left I mean it's two or $300,000 easy sometimes sometimes more that's sitting around plus what people have in their pockets that's a pretty nice Honeypot for somebody to hit yeah uh so what happened over time is a lot of the games started working on credit yeah I just got an emotional reaction like with fire in the back of my I'm not even at one of those games well I have pairs of dollars with me right now plus poker players and gamblers like nice watches so everybody's there's a lot of Rolexes and brightlings and yeah I'm not taking your watch John um you know there there's a lot of that and you know whatever else people have right so yeah they're definitely you know and if people are drinking all much that much easier but games that were too loose with security I just wouldn't go play and a lot of it I had to learn a little a little bit naive I I remember one time so the first time there was this tournament and they would do these $20 tournaments on Friday night and once every couple of months they would have a big tournament I want to say it was $500 which was a at the time in Austin was a really big tournament and they'd get a lot of people maybe 50 60 people so you know $25 $330,000 in the pot Plus what's in people's pockets and I was leaving my condo to go play this game and the guy that ran it called me and goes hey just so you know I don't have enough people interested in playing for $500 tonight we're just going to do the normal $20 tournament so I just let you know before you drive over here I said well thanks for letting me know and I decided to go to a different game instead a cash game and didn't go to that tournament unbeknownst to me this guy had been putting up Flyers around town promoting this game which was technically illegal the wrong people saw these flyers oh man they think there's $30,000 robbed it I knew lots of they they came in so this was in East Austin not the best neighborhood either and from the apartment that he lived in you had to walk across this little creek through the dark to the like Community Center thing and upstairs so there was one way in one way out dark nobody else I mean in retrospect the easiest place in the world to rrive somebody wanted to rob it it was it was almost like it was built by robbers right right um and three guys came in stripped it so one of my best friends was there got hit in the head like pistol whipped so they pistol whipped like the three biggest guys to make a point put everybody on the ground stripped everybody naked spent an hour there taking stuff and Ian it was pretty traumatizing for people that were there yeah uh and I was just very lucky not to be there um I was on my way to another game one time that got robbed and uh so after that I became very conscious to not put myself in those position okay so the first one mean stripped everyone nak that sucks it's awful took all their nice stuff I'm sure phones watches cash wallets all that good stuff credit cards probably um that's going to be scary as hell yeah Mean Guns I mean people are playing Guns what was your friends did your friend keep playing poker after he became much more hesitant I mean yes but he was became he became even more concerned with me where he it $20 game that night yeah yeah I mean but they thought they were hitting a $500 game and I think that's part of the reason they were there is they were looking for the rest of the money yeah right they thought there was they thought everybody came and it was a f like what was in the bag or wherever they kept 30,000 was nearly what they expected to have and the second and the second one you were on the way to game and it got robbed while you were on the way to the game how'd you find out phone call people that were there called us yeah that's frightening so there was a guy that in San Antonio that used to run a game and I used to see him at World Series WPT like big tournaments he used to travel and play a lot pretty good player he had a game down there that got robbed and and he realized they were robbing them as he opened the door and he tried to shut the door on them they were bigger stronger forced the door open put him on his face and shot him shot him in the back so those are that's look this this is the stuff that happens in a black market right the government makes stuff illegal you can't do it that doesn't happen at the bajio he didn't survive he survived he survived yeah yeah he survived but that's that's consequences you you push stuff underground and put in the black market and wow you know this stuff is going to happen that isn't going to happen in a there's a people aren't going to stop playing and so I mean you think about that I mean so that's happening in Austin Texas that's happening in Dallas Houston San Antonio everywhere there's a game that's happening yeah oh gave me serious about security at that point than did you ever have any like I can't imagine that someone tries to rob a game and does isn't successful like it's notan this does the security guard just Ward them off like they don't show up because they know security the guy that I trusted here anybody that cased that game I think was like H we're going to pick a softer Target I used to also prefer that I don't know what you call it but there'd be a cage out front I didn't like where they just open the door right so I wanted security cameras and I preferred that there's a cage with a camera you buzz somebody in the door locks behind them then you buzz them in the next door one of those types of deals um you know and definitely security cameras I mean it just and and this is like for house games yeah so people build build cages into their homes essentially not everybody sure but there's definitely games I wouldn't go play because of security uh I mean games that I played the most were kept smaller they didn't they just didn't invite anybody and everybody right you kind of had to but sometimes security wasn't as tight as I would have liked either any any scares when you were in room no I don't ever remember anything that yeah you know um you said your buddy was a serious security guard what what do you think made it what was serious about got it like he physically imposing he loved guns more than anybody I've ever met including you know like far more than you and yeah just a stocky but he had he had the right attitude like he a criminal wild man you know didn't give a [ __ ] but still had a loyalty that I trusted yeah right and like I felt like if the if the moment ever arose he would have went forward not backward yeah right and I also felt like he was not the guy that was going to be in on it yeah you know that I remember in Vegas I used to leave the Bellagio because you got to think you're sitting there and anybody can walk by and you've got all this money in front of you and I would drive home I worried about it more in Vegas because you'd hear stories and when I would leave I'd go to the parking garage I would kind of look around and I would go get in my car and get the hell out of there pretty fast and then I would so I didn't worry about this when I lived at Caesar so much right because the security in the hotel but when I lived in a house I would drive home and I would be watching my mirrors and I am just that's not my style I'm not a person looking for a tail or anything like that but I would be make sure that somebody wasn't following me I might even take an extra turn or two and then I would open my garage door I would open my garage door pull in the garage and close the garage door before I got out of the car which is again just not it's just not I I don't worry about a whole lot you know Julie would tell you I don't worry about nearly enough yeah um and uh any of your friends have that problem they were fall at home there was a game here in town again I haven't played much in the last 10 years but there was uh there was a game here in town where now we have these poker rooms in Austin that are quote unquote Al they're not but they look the other way and one of the security guards was in on it and they followed a couple people home and you know robbed people it's that that exact problem said hey this person's leaving they have whatever 20,000 or 50,000 or whatever that wow yeah nothing can make me want to play poker less than right now for those kinds of things like I'll play it a table we put 20 bucks in and better better shot at getting a getting a louies home games before we wrap up today and so um before we W do that I'm interested to know like how do how did you know who they always say if you don't know who the sucker is at the table you're the sucker how did you know oh you just know like people now we talked about advertising you got to be careful with somebody advertising there was a guy here in town who used to sit down kind of Buy small put his money in in a bad situation kind of laugh act like he didn't care probably do it twice then he would buy in for a bigger amount and play really serious for the next 12 hours but that loosened up his image and he was probably one of the best I ever saw at making people think he was loose and so part of Poker is you you you're constantly changing your image so people don't know don't know where you're at um is definitely part of the strategy so you have to be careful of that but it's pretty obvious like people that are making bad calls bad decisions I mean one of the things about poker you don't have all the information during the hand yep but the hands that you see when it's over you look at the story and you go oh John made this call with that oh God and he made this call and he just whether you won or lost is irrelevant right yes I can do the math and figure out did you play the hand well or did you play the hand poorly yeah right so a lot of a lot of being good at poker in my or the way I played in my strength was every hand is telling a story and how whether you call a bet raise a bet what you do and H whether you Bluff does it make sense what what starting hands could you have been in this hand and then what could you have had on this flop and just putting all that together does the story makes sense there times you bet you took somebody like you kept betting knowing you were going to lose all the way to the end just because you wanted to see how they were dealing with it is it ever worth paying for that yeah I think I did um but not often no I like it's hard to put because if you're going all the way to the end you're putting a lot of money in but let's let's use that as a segue how how do how do you win the home game for for someone who's not a poker player well I would Define what winning is I think earlier what you said looking at it is entertainment that's why you really win the home game I tell you a great story there's times with my friends where I won't look at my cards and I'll bet the whole hand and I won't look at my cards and uh so I'll just bet blind the whole time and um we got to this one deal where we I was all in they were all in and and they flopped um a full or flopped a full house or maybe it came on you know on the turn or whatever and then I got four of a kind on the river and I hadn't even seen my hand and we have because it was such a big hand someone vide we actually have the video of the river coming and it was it was wild you low stakes we probably paying for 1010 or $20 that's very hard to beat yeah so it doesn't look at their cards it goes all in that's yeah X4 of a Kind yeah um maybe maybe my favorite poker hand of all time by the way that tournament that I said got robbed That was supposed to be 500 I used to sometimes I probably only did this three times went to go play the $20 tournament and I would play it without looking at my cards like as a training tool yeah and yeah I would go play that I would go play that tournament to work on my skills of playing the player playing the situation and never looking at my cards and I wouldn't tell anybody I was doing it right and most people are so blissfully unaware that nobody would really ever pick up on it they didn't even realize what I was doing sometimes I'd even kind of act like I was looking at my cards but I wouldn't actually look at them interesting yeah so okay so now how we are how do you win the home game other than just doing it for fun which is what I do with my friends having fun is the way to guarantee that you win right but if you actually want to win-win yeah uh the real strategy is just play tight and let math be your friend yeah right right uh good starting hands I mean Phil helmuth wrote a book about this and if I remember this is one of the first books I ever read maybe the first book he said you play Ace King Ace Queen maybe king queen and then you play all pairs Aces through like sixes and you fold everything else pre flop I can't imagine playing like that I liked my thing is I want to play lots of hands play the person yeah play the strategy um I would you know unless it's a really big bet I would play every pair of pocket pairs at least trying it's called set mining like even if you have Deuces 32s is really hard to beat a game I'm assuming we're playing hold them now right like 3 tws is so it's worth seeing a flop as long as you don't have to put too much money in Pre flop um so starting quality starting hands play few hands and most of the stuff people get King five and they want to play it or ace3 ace3 is a terrible hand and people want to play it because the problem is if an ace hits the Flop you're probably in somebody else bets you're probably no good and most people are not good enough if somebody else is betting and it's an ace unless you hit an Ace and a three yeah if they have Ace five or Ace 10 or Ace Jack face anything they're beating you and most people are not especially at a home game very few people are good enough to fold top pair yeah they're just they're going to go broke and they can't get away yeah so having a high an ace or a king with a weak kicker is a hand to stay away from for most people um chasing Straits especially inside Straits like oh man part of my goal in playing a tournament is I never wanted to be Allin yeah I just always wanted to be able to survive it's not that different than money management in whatever you're doing right if you're running a business or you're investing you can't if you you don't put yourself in a position where you can go broke if you can avoid it you never get all in yeah people want to be all in I don't want to be all in yeah they want to be all in because they want the juice they want the excitement of of doing that um so trying not to be all in but not chasing look even a flush draw on the Flop if you have four to a flush there's a 38% chance you're going to hit it there's a 62% chance you're not going to hit it so even if you have to call Big bets you're probably going to go broke eventually 62% of the time it's not going to work yeah a straight is about one and three an inside straight is about one and six all right so I'm open-ended means there's two cards will give you a straight the inside means there's one card that give you a straight right um I would say maybe the other biggest thing that amateurs if you just want to beat so being more conservative and surviving is a big part of it the other thing by the way before I said patience most amateurs if you're just patient you can just beat most people but the other big thing is BET more most amateurs when they get a good hand they don't bet oh my God like when they should be betting 10x they're betting 1X or 2X or whatever they just and the fact is if somebody has top pair if you have Ace King and it's an ace high flop the people with Ace Queen Ace Jack down through ace deuce are probably going to call you regardless if you bet a little bit or a lot so just bet more and most people are way way way too conservative way too small in their bets when they have a good hand or the other thing they do is they don't better they want to be tricky and they check right they they flop they flop that set of Deuces we talked about and then they don't bet and they win the hand but they don't hardly win they they check the Flop they check the turn then the river they put in a little bit because they're so scared of chasing that person away is one of the biggest mistakes so I would say that I mean we could talk about a lot of things playing position and but if you just play fewer hands don't chase are patient and bet way more when you do have a good hand you can beat most amateures yeah okay I'm exhausted after that one between uh the uh experiment Rhino the robberies and now I know how to win a home game so good stuff man good stuff last any big any big takeaways from poker that you take forward into the rest of your world that you're like hey this is you know hard the hard lessons I mean I think there's obviously about probability statistics all those things you do you know money management but any of the any like big hard lessons you pulled from mean it's like it's life choices right like it it's I think you know bankroll management I had times where I didn't manage my bankroll very well yeah I I don't know I don't I again I I'm so lucky John I got out I got out with so much less collateral damage than the average person yeah you know and I I walked away better off financially and uh you know I I'm I'm sure there's a right answer here that I'm missing um I guess I'm just thinking about it more the stuff we talked about last time thinking in percentages thinking in bets um you know managing emotions I mean we talked about a lot of things like that last time yeah um and so probably though there is that because there there there is all that drama and being able to stay calm I think I already had that skill yeah but being able to stay calm in that and and really you know assess threats and uh again I think it made me have a healthier relationship with money yep and which I don't know you know at one point probably a little over correction the other way sure and I think I'm at a better place now um but yeah I I I'm sure there's something I'm missing so I'm just GNA leave it as I don't know very good all right well thanks for your time today on on poker part two love hearing the stories and uh yeah look forward to coming back together next time all right thanks of abundance uh you can see us at talesof abundance.com please like subscribe share with your friends let let people know what we're doing and check out the show notes we have a lot of different things in the show notes from all the episodes tools you know experiences uh notes on uh all the great tools we've been talking about um today less so on the poker episode but you'll find a host of great things there that help you share abundance the world thanks for being here hope to see you back next time

Professional Poker (Part 2)