Daniel Negreanu — seven-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner with over $50M in tournament earnings — joins Sam and Shaan to share how reading people, managing downswings, and emotional accountability translate directly to business. The conversation covers everything from combinatorics and speech play at the poker table to the Choice Center emotional intelligence seminar that changed Daniel’s life, the J.K. Rowling rock-bottom quote, and The Four Agreements. More than a poker episode, this is a masterclass in the psychology of high performance.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host), Daniel Negreanu (guest, professional poker player)
Introduction: Daniel Negreanu [00:00:00]
Sam: All right. Today we’ve got Daniel Negreanu. He is here. I’ve been watching this guy on TV for what feels like half my life. He is a poker player who I think has had over $50 million in tournament cashes — tournament winnings. You’re known for your ability to read people, for your longevity in the game, for your personality, and how you’ve built a brand around the game of poker. I think you’ve won something like five, six World Series of Poker bracelets?
Daniel: Well, we’re at seven — but it should be a lot more if I’m being honest.
Sam: And he’s humble to boot. So here he is, Daniel Negreanu. Listen, people are going to be like, “Why are you having a poker player on a business podcast?” And the reason is: A, I’m selfish. I played poker my whole life and I wanted to talk to this guy, and that’s what the podcast is. But B, there are so many parallels between poker and business — whether it’s thinking about it in terms of investing, bankroll management, pot odds — there are all these frameworks I’ve used for poker in business. But also the people side, the human side, the reading people side. And you were one of the best at that. So thanks for coming on, dude.
Daniel: Absolutely. You’re absolutely right with your description, because there are just so many things about poker. You have to register as a small business anyway, right? You’re self-employed. Getting out of bed to go and work is up to you. But you still have to make smart decisions, invest, and look for plus-EV situations.
Old School vs. Modern Poker: Gunslingers and Solvers [00:01:45]
Shaan: Sam, I don’t know if you followed poker back in the day — the famous players.
Sam: Yeah, I watched it on TV with Phil Ivey and Daniel. I’ve seen Daniel so many times.
Shaan: A lot of those guys — like Doyle Brunson — they looked like cowboys, right? They had these big personalities. It was like superheroes coming to a table. One guy was the stone-cold, you can’t read him. Another guy was the talker. Another guy just had no fear gene in his body, he could risk it all. That was the persona — these charismatic, gunslinger poker players. And then if you fast forward to now it’s like hoodie on, sunglasses on, a scrawny kid doing math. In many ways it’s become a numbers game versus the way poker used to have that swashbuckler mentality. Daniel, is that accurate?
Daniel: Pretty much. I think this is true with chess and other games too. Bobby Fischer was asked who the greatest chess player of all time was, and he said it’s not fair to compare. The players from 1905 were brilliant people, they just didn’t have access to the tools that exist now. Doyle Brunson, before computers, would run simulations by literally getting a deck of cards, a piece of paper, and a pencil. He’d take ace-king against a pair of fours, run out the board, and say, “Okay, ace-king won.” And he’d do that a hundred thousand times. Now obviously with the click of a button you have all that data.
So you’re right — a lot of the more modern players are much more deliberate. They take more time because they’re actually doing calculations we didn’t used to do. It used to be like, I’d look at Sam and go, “Yeah, Sam’s full of it. He doesn’t have it. I call.” That was the equation. Now people are doing what’s called counting combinations — combinatorics. Most poker players don’t even understand combinatorics. For example: you think your opponent has ace-king. How many ace-kings are actually possible? There are four aces and four kings, so that’s 16. These players are counting not just ace-king as one hand but as 16, and then using other factors to decide what to do with pot odds. It’s kind of complex.
Sam: It’s sort of like Babe Ruth, who shows up hungover and smoking a cigarette right before he goes and hits a home run. And now it’s all these jacked-up dudes who are technically perfect but I want the guy who ate steak and eggs and smokes a cigarette while he’s warming up.
Daniel: The more updated version of that is John Daly, right? Tiger Woods was asked once why he practices so much. He’s like, “If I was as talented as John Daly, I wouldn’t have to.” Because Tiger Woods is up at 4 or 5 a.m. to go golf, and he sees John Daly at the bar drinking, smoking. They tee off at 9, and John Daly goes out and shoots 63. I agree with you, Sam. It’s kind of romantic, frankly.
Sam: Just that old swashbuckler who just shows up and can still deliver.
The Chris Moneymaker Moment and What Hooked Daniel [00:06:00]
Shaan: Was there a moment like that that hooked you? The first poker boom I was a part of was the Chris Moneymaker thing. I remember the final table — him and Sammy Farha. Farha was this experienced player, Moneymaker was an amateur who kind of won a mini tournament that got him a ticket to the thing. It was like Willy Wonka — he got a golden ticket and got all the way there. That was great TV. Was there a moment like that for you where you thought, “This is awesome, I want to be part of this”?
Daniel: I’ll answer your question, but first — the moment you’re talking about is sort of a watershed moment in poker. It was the first time where some amateur named Chris Moneymaker — you can’t make this up — put $40 in online, turned it into a $10,000 seat, and then he’s sitting there against the grizzled vet Sammy Farha with the cigarette and the suit and the whole old-school vibe. And he ends up winning.
For me, my moment was a little further back. Do you know the movie Rounders?
Sam: Yeah, love Rounders.
Daniel: In that movie, Matt Damon is watching a scene with Johnny Chan and Eric Seidel. I used to watch those tapes as a teenager. And I remember Phil Hellmuth — who’s a buddy of mine that I like to needle — I remember watching him in his 20s. Johnny Chan had won two years in a row, and then heads-up was this young kid Phil Hellmuth, who won. That was a little bit inspirational for me. I was 16 years old and I’m like, “I’m going to be the next big thing.” I believe that was 1989.
Sam: Did you — by the way Shaan, have you ever heard Daniel tell the story about Scotty Nguyen?
Shaan: That’s exactly the one I was thinking of.
Daniel: Yeah. I was actually there for that. That was 1998, when I won my first bracelet. I was 23 years old. And Scotty Nguyen was at that final table. He’s having a Michelob — that’s what he drank — smoking a cigarette, in the hand. He looks at the guy…
Sam: Beautiful mullet.
Daniel: Beautiful mullet. He’s got the black and white, the chains, everything. And then he just gives him the, “Baby, you call, it’s going to be all over, baby.” Then he drinks his beer. Amazing psychological warfare.
So Scotty’s up against a guy who is not a professional. Highly stressful moment. You’re playing for days — 14 hours a day, five days in a row in this smoke-filled room. And Scotty gives him an out. He says, “If you call, baby, it’s going to be all over. No more pain, no more suffering. You get to go.” He put this little idea in his head. Kevin McBride — we call that speech play. That did it. That’s what got him to call. And Scotty Nguyen became world champion.
Sam: That’s exactly what Conor McGregor did to Jose Aldo.
Shaan: Yeah. Exactly.
Mini Masterclass on Reading People [00:11:30]
Shaan: There’s a sort of mind game to this whole thing. And you’re famous for reading people. I’m curious — there’s probably some natural element to it, but it’s also a practiced skill. In entrepreneurship and business, there’s a big element of reading people. You’re doing a deal with somebody. You’re selling. It’s really important to understand what’s going on in the head of the other person. If you were going to give us a mini masterclass on reading people, what are the big factors?
Daniel: Okay. We’re going to start from when you’re born and you’re a little baby in your mother’s arms. A little baby can look at their mother and get a sense of when mama is happy or sad. That’s a natural human instinct. We’re all born with that. What happens is as we get older, we trust it less and less. Have you ever met someone, and within three seconds there’s just something you don’t like about this guy? You have no reason. They haven’t done anything. But something felt off.
When you’re a poker player and you’re trying to read people, you trust those instincts. I did this as a teenager when I started becoming professional — I would go to the mall, sit on a bench, wear sunglasses so people didn’t think I was a weirdo, and I’d watch people walk by. I’d get a sense of who is this person. Were they picked on in high school? Are they confident? Are they insecure? Are they depressed? Were they a football player? I’d make up stories in my head. So when I sit at a poker table, everything — what you’re wearing, what you do, where you’re from — that’s a puzzle where I’m essentially profiling people. Which we all have the capacity to do.
In business it’s super important. If a guy comes and tells you, “Oh, we had a great first quarter, unbelievable, we broke records” — why are you telling me all this in such a blustery way? Probably because it’s not true. You have to get a sense for when people are lying, and remember what they looked like when they were lying so you can look for that pattern.
I’ll give you a simple example. It was in Europe, World Series of Poker Europe. I played with this guy on day one and he was chewing gum. In a hand where all his money was in the middle, he stopped chewing. Wasn’t chewing his gum anymore. I wanted to see that hand. He turned it over — he was bluffing. I banked that in my memory. Four days later, a big spot between me and him at the final table. He bets all his chips — he’s chewing away. I throw my hand away. Later, he bets all his chips — he’s not chewing. I call. He’s bluffing. I knock him out of the tournament.
The eyes are very telling. People often aren’t looking you in the eye — they look away or look down to the right because they’re uncomfortable, because they’re saying something they shouldn’t be saying. Body language is huge. Is someone stiff, or laid back in their chair? If someone’s laid back, they’re not afraid of you looking at them. You can sense when someone’s comfortable versus not. And a lot of players now are looking at pulse. Everyone’s covering their necks with scarves because of it.
How to Successfully Pitch an Investor (and What Not to Do) [00:18:00]
Sam: Can we invert that? Let’s say I’m trying to get you to invest in my company and I want to successfully pitch you. What would the checklist be?
Daniel: Certainty, for sure. But here’s the thing — the best con artists are also the best liars, so they can fool you. I’d say an overexuberance of confidence is actually problematic. If you’re just too “Oh my god, this is the greatest thing” — if you actually acknowledge both good and bad, that shows honesty. Like, “Listen, we’re in great shape. However, we really got to work on this.” Admitting something bad almost makes the good stuff more believable. If you were going to lie to me about A, tell me the truth about B that doesn’t look good for you — now A is far more believable.
Sam: So I’d be confident but self-deprecating and admitting to flaws. What else?
Daniel: Looking the person in the eye is a big one. And never come off as desperate.
Sam: What’s an example of being desperate?
Daniel: Desperate people frontload the pitch and the ask too much. If you really want to pitch somebody, play the long game. Don’t even make an ask. Just be like, “Man, I’m working on this really great project. It’s fantastic.” Then at the end of it, don’t ask for anything. If you’ve pitched it well enough, subtly, he’s going to ask you. How much better is it when he says, “So, are you taking money for investment?” And you go, “Yeah, we are, but you know, we’re in round one — we’re fine, we got money. But hey, listen, we’re always open to talk.” Now you’ve flipped it on him.
Shaan: Instead of you selling him, he’s like, “I want in on that.”
Daniel: Exactly. That’s a really solid way to get people on board with your vision.
How Daniel Developed His Skills: The Siler Method [00:21:30]
Shaan: You mentioned that on your come-up you’d go to the mall and practice your observational skills — just watch people, try to understand how they move and think. What were the other things you did to get good? You don’t become who you became without doing something uncommon.
Daniel: On the topic of observational skills — do you guys remember the show Heroes? There was a character called Sylar, and all these people had superhero-type talents. He’d go in there and he’d absorb this ability for himself. When I started out quite young, I would notice that the same guys were always winning. So I’d think, okay, this week I’m getting inside Sam’s head. I’m going to sit like him. I’m going to stack my chips like him. I’m going to try to become him for this week and understand exactly how he thinks. Take all the good, leave the bad. Then move on to Shaan. “Okay, let’s be Shaan for this week. Let’s understand what makes him successful.”
The idea was to create this super-player by taking the best skills from all these different people. Learning from those that are already successful. And that’s easier to do today than it’s ever been. Like, I’m going to be streaming later today playing for eight hours. You can watch me play and see my hole cards and hear me explain my thought process without risking any money at the poker table. You start to think outside the box just from observation.
Reading People on Zoom and Phone Calls [00:24:30]
Sam: I previously owned a media company that I sold, and I sold it via Zoom — a lot of phone calls. You’ve talked about reading people, but it’s very physical. Is there a way to read someone on Zoom or a phone call? Can you hear it in their voice?
Daniel: Obviously you can do something on Zoom, but frankly, the best way to get reads on people is when they are relaxed. When are they relaxed? Not during a business call. Everyone’s buttoned up and ready to talk. How about when you go for dinner and drinks? “Hey, we should go check out this restaurant.” Then talk about things unrelated to business. Disarm them. I do this in poker all the time.
I’ll be in a spot where my opponent bets all their chips. It’s my decision. Instead of looking at them, I look at the dealer and go, “Why did I do this to myself? This is what I always do.” And then in the corner of my eye I see him laughing — he thinks he has the best hand. So I’m looking at the dealer and I say, “What if he just has ace-jack?” And then I look at his face and he goes — and I can beat that. His demeanor changes. But the thing is, he’s disarmed because I wasn’t looking at him.
The analogy with business: you’re still at that dinner, at those drinks. You’re still in reading mode. But they’re relaxed. Especially with a little bit of alcohol, they’ll be a little looser. That’s when you get the best reads on who this person is and how they think. It’s much more difficult when everyone’s very stiff and formal, because it’s practiced. If you’re taking a pitch from somebody, they’ve probably done that pitch before. That’s not authentic. You need to see the real person, and that usually happens away from those formal environments.
The Body Language Tells That Matter Most [00:29:00]
Sam: Is there a certain body part? Because you said “he stopped smiling” — but to someone like me who doesn’t know what to look for, it doesn’t seem that obvious.
Daniel: There’s a myriad of examples. The eyes are very, very telling. But the other one is smiles. If I showed you ten smiles right now — five real, five fake — you’d be surprised how good you are at telling them apart. A fake smile is kind of like this. A real smile you see more up here, around the eyes. Body language is a big one too. Are they stiff? Are they laid back in their chair? If someone’s laid back, they’re comfortable. They’re not afraid of you looking at them.
Shaan: Sean, have you ever heard this story? The 1992 election between George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton. There’s this famous debate where many political analysts say this is when George Bush Senior lost to this up-and-coming young guy. A young woman in the crowd was asking a question about something very everyday — something like not being able to afford groceries. While she’s asking, George Bush Senior very subtly looked at his watch. Just like that. And it was over.
Then the analysts show: look at Bill Clinton. He grabs the mic, walks closer, and goes, “What did you say your name was? Can you tell me about your background? What do you do for work? It’s so hard to hear what you’re going through. I’m so sorry.”
A decade later, they did a test. They got rid of the audio and just showed people the body language. Then a separate test where you could only listen to the audio. The people who only watched the video without audio could predict the election outcome correctly. The people who only listened to audio couldn’t. The idea being that body language communicates significantly more than audio alone. And it was literally just that one moment — he looked at his watch — and that was the end of the election. That’s what a lot of people say.
Daniel: I remember that too, and it makes so much sense. The difference is that Bill Clinton got personal. The body language mattered. How often today are you talking to somebody and they’re on their phone — yeah, uh-huh, right — and you feel like you’re being ignored? Versus somebody who puts their phone down, looks at you, gives you a nod. That person is someone you want to engage with. You feel respected. George Bush in that moment — that’s disrespectful. That’s the same as looking at your phone. And Bill Clinton did the opposite. Where are you from? Tell me about your story. The difference is drastic.
Daniel’s Origin Story: From Pool Halls to Poker [00:34:00]
Shaan: How did you get into poker? What’s the origin story, and did it work right away or did you hit some rock bottoms early on?
Daniel: I started as a teen. I was a pool player — I was playing snooker in Canada. Through that I made some friends and they said, “We’re going to go play some poker.” I didn’t know what that was. I got a six-pack of beer and brought my $10, lost it real quick, drank my beer, and mostly watched. They were playing these crazy wild card games — follow the queen, all these silly games. But I’m watching, and I started to notice something: how come the same two or three guys always seem to win, and these guys always lose? That intrigued me because I’ve always been very competitive.
I bought a really bad poker book back then. Very elementary. But it helped — it made me think about the game in a more sophisticated way. It took me about a month or two until I started to figure things out.
My origin story: I was building up money, but I’m a teenager and I’m reckless. You got money, you lose it. The good news was I had people around me who started to see that he’s good at poker, he’s honorable. So when I would go broke, I could borrow money — $500 or a thousand dollars back then. I went broke many, many times. But that’s part of the learning experience. The relation to business is essentially: if you have very little to lose, you can take shots. Because whatever, you lose, you lose. You can recover.
Risk-Taking: Small Bankroll vs. Established Brand [00:37:30]
Daniel: I spoke at Kraft Foods once for a corporate event. Someone asked, “What would you do with Kraft Mac and Cheese? It’s been our staple.” I used the poker analogy. I said, if I had a $500 bankroll — I can replicate that, I can get that back. But once I have $2 million, I can’t really risk the whole $2 million to go back to $500, because it’s too much. When I was broke, I would take shots. But once you have an established brand, once you’ve got the money, you shouldn’t mess with it too much.
When you take risk, you take risk when you’re on the low end of the totem pole. That’s exactly when you take them — especially in your 20s. But once you’re established, you should be way more risk-averse. I play poker for a living, but when it comes to investing and all that stuff, I know nothing about it. I’m very risk-averse. I have a Morgan Stanley guy — municipal bonds, I don’t even know what it is. But it’s safe. I don’t gamble needlessly at this point, because I’ve already created the dream life that I want.
Sam: There was a guy who came into my college class called “Getting Rich” — this was my senior year, and probably the most valuable class I took. A VC came in and said, “Okay, who here wants to start a business someday?” About 75% of the kids raised their hand. He goes, “Great. Now who’s going to start a business this May when you graduate?” The 75% dropped to like two or three hands. He started asking why. And people said, “I got this great job at McKinsey, at Goldman. I’m going to do that for a few years to get experience, then I’ll go do the business thing.”
He said, “You guys have it backwards. When you’re 21 or 22 and you can live on a futon and you have no mortgage, no kids, and no expectations — this is the time to just go broke repeatedly. Try so many businesses. Don’t wait until you’re 28 to 32, because that’s when it’s going to feel a lot harder. You’re going to have a better salary, a job, a reputation. You’re not going to want to be a beginner in your 30s. Be a beginner in your 20s.” And literally that shifted the course of my life. Similar to poker — when you have a small bankroll is when you want to take the most risk, because you can recover and bounce back quickly.
Shaan: So when you were in your teens, learning the game, going broke but borrowing money and getting back in — what happened from there?
Daniel: People are very good at thinking of all the reasons why something’s not going to work. So it’s very easy to say, “I want to start this business, but I don’t have the money. The timing isn’t good. When everything is set, then I’ll do it.” I did a course years ago on emotional intelligence and there’s a concept called be-do-have. Many people think you need to have everything in order to be something. The truth is: be it, do it, and you’ll have it. Just go for it.
For me, that’s kind of what I did. I went for it. I went to Vegas. I remember the first time — I had like $3,000. Twenty-four hours later, I did not. But I had three more days in Vegas with no money. Learning experience. Got kicked in the teeth. Went back home to Toronto, rebuilt, kept going back.
I went from being the big fish in a small pond in Toronto to playing the top pros. I remember a very distinct moment when that happened. It was like 4 in the morning. I was playing seven-handed and I lost my money. I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, came back out — and they were all gone. I realized in that moment I was the sucker. They were only playing because of me. I was their EV. Their expected value.
I remembered every one of their faces with vengeance. One of them was a guy named Hawaiian Bill — he’d wear those Hawaiian shirts. Hated him at the table because he was aggressive and he just knew how to beat me. About a year or two later, he sort of became a little bit of a mentor of mine. I was like, “This guy knows what he’s doing. He’s been around the block. I’m going to learn from him instead of being angry.”
I had many walks home from the casino to my motel where I wondered, what am I doing? I’m not in school, I’m not going anywhere. But the good news was I’d wake up in the morning ready to go. Alright. Today’s the day. Let’s turn it around.
The Fortress of Solitude: When Did Daniel Feel Secure? [00:45:30]
Sam: There’s a scene in a poker movie — with Mark Wahlberg and John Goodman — where John Goodman basically says, look, every idiot knows: when you’re up $2 million, you take a million and you buy a house. You buy a crappy car. You put the rest in savings. That’s your fortress of solitude. You never mess with that. And then you go gamble with the rest. Was there a point in your life where you felt like you had a base? How early or late were you before you felt some security?
Daniel: The first time it happened, I was very wrong about it. In 1999 I had a good year. I won the US Poker Championship. I had like $400-500,000. I thought, okay, we’re set. We’re never going broke again. Then in 2000 I got complacent. I was living the Vegas life — strip joints, dinners, playing poker and gambling, not taking it as seriously. By the end of 2000, the money was gone.
It was a good learning experience. I’m glad it happened, because I watched many of my peers go through this pattern: build up a bankroll, blow it all, rebuild. Part of it was they didn’t have a foundation — no real reason why. They’d wake up and their goal was just to make money. Then they had money. Now what? So subconsciously they self-sabotaged. They lost all the money so they had a purpose again.
I said to myself, I’m not going to be that guy. I started taking things more seriously in the early 2000s. Probably by my late 20s, early 30s, is when I finally realized: I’ve got it figured out. I’ve got enough money. We’re for sure not going broke anymore. Even at higher stakes, I’m much more careful. But that year of failure in 2000 — bottoming out — that was a decision point.
I watched a guy — he was playing in the big game, he had $2 million. He’s got a couple ladies with him, doing blow, drinking. Three days later, this guy who had $2 million in front of him comes up and says, “Hey man, can I get 500?” Back to nothing. I saw that and I was like, “Wow, man. You had $2 million and you blew all that.” And I knew I was never going to be that guy.
Archie Karas and the Curse of Too Much [00:50:30]
Sam: What’s the biggest amount you saw someone have go to zero?
Daniel: I don’t know this guy personally, but the famous story is Archie Karas, who was a craps player. He went to the Binion’s Horseshoe and was winning like a million dollars a day. He had $45 million — every $5,000 chip that Binion’s had, he had in his safety deposit box. He had $45 million. Lost it all. And then for a second time he was able to build his bankroll back up to about $17 or $18 million. Lost it all.
This is where I don’t relate to people that are billionaires who are still trying to make money. Like, you have a billion dollars. Why do you care so much about a deal that just made you $20 million? That’s going to do nothing to change your life.
I have friends that are billionaires. One of them actually wrote a book — Bill Perkins. He does it right. He wrote a book called Die with Zero. He talks about how money is just a tool to give you opportunities to have happiness. And what is happiness? It’s not a bigger yacht. It’s not a watch. It’s experiences. He talks about spend your money. Think about it: if you look back at the last 10 years, you bought a watch. Did that give you lasting happiness? What about the trip you took with your boys when you went on a golfing trip to the south of France? You still have those memories. That’s something valuable.
Sam: That’s where the opposite happens. Instead of making you happy, it’ll make you vehemently unhappy if that’s the only source of happiness you’re seeking.
Daniel: Yeah. It’s almost frustrating — like you keep going to this well trying to scoop up some happiness and there’s just none there.
Shaan: Diminishing returns.
Daniel: Exactly. Diminishing returns. It’s like cocaine — I’ve never done it, but the more you do it, you have that little fleeting dopamine hit, but your body becomes accustomed to it. Doesn’t even have that same effect. Same thing with material objects. You have six cars. You buy a seventh, an eighth. What now?
Why Daniel Still Plays: The Love of Competition [00:55:00]
Sam: What motivates you then? You’re playing a game that’s literally for money. The goal is to get the chips from the other guy. You’ve made plenty of money. You don’t have to keep playing. Why do you do it?
Daniel: That’s the hook. That’s the trick. The majority of successful people became successful doing what they’re doing because they love what they’re doing. If you don’t love what you’re doing, your chances of being successful are very slim. If you just say, “I want to be rich and famous” — okay, but do you love the work? Do you have that passion for it?
I always loved competing. I would have loved to be an athlete, but I’m 5’9” and about 160 pounds. Too tall to be a jockey, too short to be a basketball player. Poker was a battle of wits. I love the game. When I started playing, I wasn’t playing for money — money was a tool. I wanted to play in bigger games, play with the best. The only way to do that was to have money. So money wasn’t the end goal.
Ultimately, what money provided me was freedom. To be able to do whatever I want in my 30s, 40s, and 50s. Travel, relax, stay home, not go to a day job, be my own boss. That’s what I looked at as far as money goes. The truth is, if my bank account were 10 times what it is now, my life wouldn’t change much at all.
Shaan: Isn’t it funny though — the line between degeneracy and loving it? We could be describing very similar things. Like I’m a bit of a workaholic. I love it. But someone else would call that being a degenerate.
Daniel: You know, Doyle Brunson had that famous quote where they asked him about gambling and he said, “We’re all really just degenerate gamblers — we just found something we could beat.”
A lot of the old school guys, they gambled on everything. Poker players didn’t just play poker. They’d play golf for big money, bet on every game. They’re always looking for action. But for me, that’s not the be-all, end-all. I’m not really a thrill-seeker in that way. People say, “Oh, you should bungee jump or jump out of a plane.” I have zero interest in that. Zero. It just doesn’t do for me what it does for other people.
Who’s the Best Player Daniel Ever Faced? [01:00:30]
Sam: Who’s the best poker player you’ve ever sat down with? Has there ever been anybody you sat across from and thought, “This guy’s better than me”?
Daniel: Yeah, for sure. Several. One of them is my good friend of 30 years, and he did what I didn’t. When it comes to all the games — and I mean all the games — the best poker player in the world, in my view, is Phil Ivey. Phil and I took different paths.
When poker started getting popular on TV, there were all these opportunities — sponsorships, the business side of poker. Phil wasn’t about that. He was nose to the grindstone. “I’m going to sit my leather ass in this chair and play for 10 hours and make all the money.” I had that intensity when I was younger, but then I saw these other opportunities and I enjoyed them. I wanted to be on camera, speaking — that was comfortable for me. And I did well that way. Phil went a different path and did well his way.
The difference is, once I started doing all that, my focus was diverted. He was focused on one thing and one thing only. The intensity with which he played — I can’t reach that, because I’ve got other things going on. Which is fine. I don’t regret it. But that’s part of what made him so successful. He was completely consumed by poker and nothing else.
Sam: What’s his superpower?
Daniel: He was a quiet assassin. Paying attention to everything. He sees everything. He’ll sit in a cash game and within 15 or 20 minutes, he’d know if the wrong guys were winning. And what does “the wrong guys winning” mean? It means the bad players are running good — which means they’re going to play loose because they’re feeling it. So sometimes he’d play for 15 minutes, see there’s nothing there, and go home. Other days he’d be there for four days without leaving his chair, because he saw that the targets were vulnerable.
It’s all a bunch of sharks in that environment. If every shark is circling each other and one shark is wounded, everyone goes after that shark. And he was the king of finding that moment. His ability to dial in with uber focus — that was his thing.
How to Stay Calm Under Pressure [01:06:00]
Shaan: If you had to teach me how to stay calm under pressure in high-stakes games — you and Phil as my coaches, we’ve got three days in a hotel before we go down. Not the math or the cards. What would be my checklist?
Daniel: Well, first of all — in a three-day span, for someone completely new? Virtually impossible. Because here’s the thing: it’s an emotional experience. You could do a meditative retreat, yoga retreat, learn to get centered. But entering an environment you’ve never experienced before, dealing with that kind of stress — that’s a you thing. You’re going to have to go through it.
Now that’s different for people who have played for years. With experienced players, I can get them to focus on the fundamentals. Are you making good decisions? Let’s focus on that. Let’s not become victims to the idea of “I’m so unlucky.” That does you no good. Be input-focused, not output-focused.
Sam: Input focused, not output focused.
Daniel: Focus on the journey. In poker, making the right decision doesn’t guarantee making money — that’s not how poker works. I can go all-in with pocket aces, and Sam calls with a nine-four. That’s a great situation for me. But sometimes I’m going to lose. Did I make a mistake? No. In the long run I’m going to be okay.
If I was coaching someone who plays the market, I’d make an analogy like: sometimes you make great investments and something completely uncontrollable happens and it goes to zero. That doesn’t make your decision bad. Your decision was good. So focus on that rather than “woe is me.”
Alternatively, if you lost and you missed something important — okay, use that. A breakdown is an opportunity. Plug the leak. Be better prepared the next time you’re in the same situation. Poker is essentially a big puzzle where you start out making all these mistakes, and you keep plugging leaks until you’ve seen situations so many times that you go, “Aha — I made this mistake before. This time, I’m going to do the right thing.”
The Most Common Leak: Chasing Losses [01:11:30]
Sam: What are the most common leaks for a smart, competent player who’s not a beginner but still has something that’s killing their game?
Daniel: A pretty common leak for 99% of poker players or gamblers in general is this: when they’re winning, they don’t play as long. They’ll be like, “All right, I’m taking my winnings, I’m going home.” Whereas when they’re losing, they’ll stay for days.
I had a friend — an ex-girlfriend — who would win almost every day. I’d ask, “How’d you do?” “I won $100. I won $200. I won $300.” Day after day. Then I look at one day and it says she lost $3,700. She won nine out of ten days. But the first nine days she won $100, $200, $300. Over ten days she was way behind because of her mental state.
When you’re winning, the situation is good and you should press — that’s when you should be extending. But when she was losing, the sessions weren’t one or two hours like usual. That one day she lost $3,500, she was there for 31 hours.
The biggest leak people make is chasing losses in the short run. “I have to get even today.” This game doesn’t end today. It’s all month, all year. You have to be able to say, “Okay, well, when you’re losing, your mental state is affected. Play more when your mental state is good.”
The Inner Game: Flow State and Trusting Your Instincts [01:16:30]
Sam: Have you ever read The Inner Game of Tennis, Daniel?
Daniel: No.
Sam: We’ve talked about it on here before, and what you’re describing is exactly that. It teaches you about life through tennis. The concept is that you have two selves. Self One is the conscious critical mind — you judge yourself. “That was a bad hit. That was a bad hand.” Self Two is when you don’t think, you feel. And when you listen to your body and don’t judge yourself, that’s often when hot streaks happen. In basketball, when you can’t miss, they say don’t pull the player out — let them go.
Daniel: Exactly. Golf too. When you golf, most people have a swing thought — something they’re working on. But I remember one time my swing thought was this: “Nothing from nothing is nothing.” Which means nothing — just swing. I would literally go over the ball and in my head I’d sing that song. Just let the body do it. Because when you’re over-technical and over-analyzing, it can actually be a detriment.
Sam: You and this author are saying the exact same thing. That’s fascinating to me.
Daniel: And it’s true in poker, too. You see a move, and instead of just going with it, you’re like, “I don’t know, should I take this risk? It might work, it might not.” Instead of just trusting. And here’s a secret weapon I don’t use too often, but it really helps — alcohol. A little bit of it.
There was a guy named Bill Smith many years ago. They said when he was sober, he was the easiest, weakest player. When he was drunk, he was a sloppy mess. But when he was just a little buzzed — just a little — they said he was the best player in the world. Why? Because alcohol can lower your inhibition slightly. You’re trusting. You get past the fear and the rationalization for why you shouldn’t take the risk. It quiets what’s going against your instincts.
Learning to create that trust without alcohol is the ideal goal. And I’ve actually gotten a lot better at that naturally, just by saying: if you think this is probably right, forget about all the other reasons. Just do it, man. Just do it.
The Paris Sleep Study and Creative Flow [01:21:00]
Shaan: I’m writing a book right now on creativity and getting into creative flow. In the research I’m looking at, it’s amazing — so many famous writers were drunks. And they would wake up and immediately start writing. But their best work also often involved adding alcohol right before they started.
There’s also an interesting analogy to napping. There’s this famous study called the Paris Sleep Study. You get into a state of mind where your inhibition is lower and you don’t self-censor. We all have this sort of editor in our head — in the tennis analogy, the umpire calling balls in and out. When you can get that umpire to just shut up and trust yourself, you do a lot better.
In the Paris Sleep Study, they gave people a complicated number pattern. About 10% of people solved it right away. The rest were stuck. They split the group: half went to a waiting room to hang out, the other half were told to nap — about 25 or 26 minutes. When they woke up, the group that had napped had roughly three times the rate of solving the problem immediately when they got back in.
Edison used to nap. Einstein used to nap. They famously napped with a spoon in their hand because they didn’t want to sleep too long. They’d get into that state where you’re just starting to fall asleep — and when you drop the spoon, the clang wakes you up. That state is called the hypnagogic state. You’re way more creative in it, and you can get into flow much more easily.
Daniel: That’s super fascinating. My first thought is that sleep in general, for poker, is the most important thing. It’s the time where the mind shuts down and reboots, downloads all the information so you’re ready the next day. I remember hearing similar research where they had people do a test in the morning, then at night, then sleep, then the next morning — and the next morning results were always better than the previous night’s.
I didn’t know napping could do that. But I’m a big fan of naps. When we used to go to Europe to play — jet lag and all — sometimes I’d be at the table with my head down, hand out, and I could feel the dealer throw the card to my finger. Time to wake up.
The Emotional Intelligence Seminar That Changed Daniel’s Life [01:26:30]
Sam: You mentioned at the beginning that you went to a course or seminar on emotional intelligence, and that’s not what I expected you to say. I thought you’d talk about poker and math and stats. Why did you go, and what did you get out of it?
Daniel: Yeah. It was in Vegas. I did it in 2013. My manager Brian — super healthy, great family, lawyer guy, very buttoned up — he did it. We were playing golf one day and he said, “You should try this.” I trusted him. He thought it had value. I said I’d go.
It was nothing like I expected. This was no business seminar. This was a deep dive into what makes you tick, where you decided certain things about yourself, what works about you and what doesn’t. It was a life-changing experience. I hated it the first couple of days, but because I had faith in Brian, I stuck with it.
Some of the key tenets: the difference between being a victim to circumstance versus being completely responsible for where you are and all the decisions you make. You’re not responsible for the weather or a car crash. But you’re responsible for your response to it. The word “responsible” when you break it down is essentially “response-able.” How you respond to things is often the difference between those who succeed and those who fail.
They told a story about two mothers. Same event: both had a child killed in a car accident. The first mother grieved, started drinking, lost herself in depression. Six months, a year later, she’d lost her family. You can empathize with that — of course. The second mother had the exact same thing happen. She grieved, took her time, then she started an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Same event. Neutral event. The response to the event led these lives in very different trajectories.
Sam: One of the biggest things I learned from Shaan is that being internally responsible — having an internal locus of control — isn’t just about making money or starting a business. It’s also about how you feel on the inside. That was the biggest shift for me.
Shaan: The one that stuck with me — I went to a Tony Robbins event. Similar thing. I was there just for the learning, but then 5 minutes in, I had a fork in the road. You’re either going to play full out here and do the experience, or you’re going to get half the results. I said whatever, nobody here knows me. Let me just do this.
Forty-five minutes in, I’m dancing. This is amazing. And he tells this story where he was on a trip with his platinum group in India, and he meets this guru on a mountain. The guru says, “Tony, how much are you suffering nowadays?” Tony’s like, “I don’t know if you know me, but suffering isn’t exactly how people describe me.” The guru says, “Well, I can see that you got upset because the guy didn’t know the schedule, and then you got upset about this.” Small things. Tony starts to get defensive, then calms down. The guru basically said, “How cheap is your happiness?” It took this one guy forgetting one thing on the schedule and you lost it. That was so cheap.
So this idea: your mood is like a luxury item. For somebody to take your mood away from you — it should come with a very, very high price. I started to reframe things. When something would happen, I’d think: that’s too cheap. I’m not taking that deal. Why would I ever trade my good mood for that small thing?
Daniel: I love that. Because we all strive to be above that, but we’re human. I get annoyed by the dumbest things. I’m going to use that today. I do streams where I get thousands of comments. The brain naturally gravitates toward the negative one — the guy who calls me a bald idiot or whatever. I’ve learned to respond to positive reinforcement and ignore the rest.
But when I play a hand and I lose and I’m already frustrated, and then you read a bunch of armchair quarterbacks saying “what an idiot, you gave all your money away, you’re the worst” — I want to go, “Sam65934, come here and say that to my face.” Sometimes I do that. But it’s silly. Why am I allowing this?
Sam: Sometimes it feels good though. I trick myself into thinking it feels good. And then reality is it doesn’t feel good — I’m refreshing the page going, “Let me see the reply. Let me see.” I can’t go out to dinner, this guy on Facebook said something, I’ve got to wait for his reply.
Daniel: I will say this though: I’m a big fan of venting. Rather than hold stuff in and let it bubble and fester, I laugh at myself sometimes when I act like an idiot. I get mad about something dumb and then very quickly I can go, “Okay, that was stupid.” But I got it off my chest. I see the river card, I lose, I’m like, “What the hell is going on here? How did I lose this?” And then I can laugh at how unhinged I was behaving. It’s not going to stay with me. Sometimes there’s value in just letting it out.
Shaan: Sam, you mentioned that thing from last week’s newsletter — Keenland’s law, or something like that — where if you write down a problem, you’ve already half-solved it.
Sam: Yeah, basically — a problem well-defined is already halfway to a solution. If you can write it down accurately, you’re already halfway there.
The Choice Center Exercise: Retelling Your Story [01:38:00]
Shaan: Daniel, the Tony Robbins experience has some exercise — some thing you do that you wouldn’t have wanted to do, but now you’re in the room, you paid the money, you signed up, and you do it. And you kind of have this moment of enlightenment that only happened because you were actually immersed in it. Did they do anything like that? Was there an exercise that stood out?
Daniel: There’s tons. The one I’ll share is the root of the whole victim-versus-responsible idea. I remember there was a girl. I was young, we were together, I loved her, but we broke up. I had a story about how I was the victim — she did this, she did that, she was bad, all these things. One of the exercises was: we tell the story as a victim. Okay. Now you must retell the exact same story where you are 100% responsible for everything that happened.
All of a sudden — well, she did tell me this. She did say this. And I’m freed. I’m freed of this victim story that had been a label I was carrying: “Woe is me. Poor me.” I said to myself, “No. The signs were there. The choices were mine.” And I’ll say this: after I did that course in 2013, this woman who I was in love with in 2010 and 2011 — I had actually bought her a ring back then and never given it to her. Kept it in my safe for some reason. She came back to Las Vegas in 2019, and we’re married now. Six years.
A lot of that came from me re-evaluating the story I had told myself. The course itself — called Choice Center — is about a 100-day process. You go one intense weekend, then another weekend, and throughout that there are coaching calls. You actually learn how to coach other people.
Sometimes when I would coach other people, one of the questions I’d ask is: “Say you came to me for coaching on something. How would you coach yourself on this?” And as you do that, you’re like, “Well, I would probably tell myself this, this, and this.” And then I just look at you and go, “There you go.” You already know the answer. A good coach isn’t one who tells you what to do. A good coach asks good questions that help you see what’s possible so you get there yourself.
Downswings Are Opportunities for Breakthroughs [01:44:00]
Shaan: What is the strategy for handling downswings? You know, I went to Vegas with a friend in college. We’d lose money and the psychology of losing money gets you to act so strange. He’d chase the loss, go to the ATM — bro, don’t do it — and then he’d lose more and try to get the pit boss to comp him a breakfast just to salvage some dignity. Or he’d come back to the room and use all the toiletries and wear the robe as if he was getting the value back. And he’d look in the mirror — I remember he thought we were asleep — and he just goes, “Five iPhones. You lost five iPhones.” Hating himself.
We spent so much time on the strategy of how to win. What we actually needed to spend time on was the psychology of how to lose, because there were always going to be downswings. And we handled them so poorly that our strategies went out the window. What do you tell yourself during downswings, and what’s applicable to people outside of poker?
Daniel: The downswings are probably the most important part. How you deal with them is the most important part of becoming a professional poker player. Over the years I learned: you call them a breakdown, but typically with a breakdown, things are going badly. That’s an opportunity for a breakthrough.
When things are going fine, you’re probably not delving that deeply into your strategy. But when things are going badly and going wrong, it requires you to be more introspective. You have to go, okay, what is really happening here? Is what I’m doing working? What can I do better? What strategies can I adjust? Those questions usually come from breakdowns — whether it’s in poker or in life.
When you’re in a downswing in your life with whatever it is, that’s an opportunity for a breakthrough. You either say, “Okay, this is where I’m at. Woe is me.” Or: “Is now the time to reinvent myself? Try a new angle? Do things differently to get to a better place?” Often people call it rock bottom. If someone’s an addict getting by, people say this person’s not going to be helped until they hit rock bottom. Because rock bottom is the decision point. This is it. I’m either going to die here like this, or some change has to happen.
Shaan: There’s a J.K. Rowling quote about this.
Sam: J.K. Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter — billionaire author. She said, when she was at her lowest and had been rejected: “I was set free because my greatest fear had already been realized. I was still alive. I still had a daughter I adored. And I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
Daniel: That’s beautiful. That encapsulates exactly what we’re talking about. The most impactful stages of your life — for me, going to that course required me to be at a low point. I had that lost love, that breakup, that painful experience. So I went out and I said, “Okay. Let’s do something.” And then boom, completely shifted my relationship with that event. Eventually became the man who could look past our differences back then and realize I’m responsible for this relationship working. And now we’re happily married.
I constantly think of those things. That course — I don’t know if it’s similar for you with the Tony Robbins thing — but I still use and practice a lot of what I learned there on a daily basis. I’m not perfect by any stretch. I still have my bad times. But I recognize them more quickly. When I’m being an idiot or a jerk or arrogant, I notice it faster and I’m able to shift out of it.
Shaan: It’s like afterwards I was thinking, “I feel like Neo in The Matrix.” But it’s not seeing everyone else. It’s seeing yourself. Oh, I’m just acting this way because of this thing. Little shifts. Like instead of “I have to go pick up my kids,” it’s “I get to go pick up my kids.” Me five years ago would have killed for this, and now it’s a have-to? What’s going on here? And so you get curious about those things.
Daniel: I think we came into this podcast thinking there’d be some poker lessons — the art of bluffing and reading people. But this turned into a podcast about the mind.
The Four Agreements: Daniel’s Content Diet [01:52:30]
Shaan: Can I ask about your content diet? What do you read and listen to on a daily or weekly basis? I find your attitude interesting and I want to be inspired by the same things that inspire you.
Daniel: One of the books I loved — nothing recently, but one that had a big impact — is by Don Miguel Ruiz. It’s called The Four Agreements. Such an easy read. Four basic principles.
Number one: be impeccable with your word, to yourself and to others. Number two: don’t take anything personally. Number three: don’t make assumptions. Number four: do your best.
“Do your best” is the most important one, because the idea behind it is that you’re going to fail at those other three sometimes. But as long as you’re doing your best, you’re in a good place. And “be impeccable with your word” — I take that so seriously. Not just for others but for myself. To the point where if I said to you guys I’d be here at 9 a.m. and I showed up at 9:04, I’d feel like I’d broken an agreement. Many people go through life showing up at 9:04 and don’t even acknowledge it.
Sometimes you’re going to be five minutes late. What does a responsible person do? “I acknowledge I’m late. I’m very sorry. No excuses. I’m committed to being on time in the future.” You can respect that. But somebody who’s always 15 or 20 minutes late and thinks it’s no big deal — they’re disrespecting your time, and I don’t trust their word when they say they’ll be there at nine.
Sam: I’m terrible at that. Not the timing thing, but keeping your word to yourself. I’m actually pretty good about keeping my word to other people, but with myself — I’m the judge, the jury, and the executioner. I can always let myself off the hook.
I have a food coach. I’m trying to get in great shape. She calls me every day at 10:45 and says, “Hey, how did yesterday go?” We talk through it for 10 minutes. And there are all these little moments where I tell her, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to have this at this time. Tonight I’m not going to late-night snack. I’m going to get to bed on time.” Next day — well, there were some crackers out, and I wasn’t even really thinking about it, but I was kind of hungry.
And she made me realize: it’s not about the crackers. The chips aren’t going to kill you. But being the guy who breaks his word to himself all the time — that actually will kill you. You will let yourself down. You won’t even trust yourself because you don’t believe what you say. And that has been one of the things I’ve struggled most at and am trying to overcome. Because I’m a very persuasive person. I can persuade myself back into anything. I don’t want to use that skill against myself.
Emotional Intelligence as a Vehicle [01:59:00]
Sam: We have a bunch of guests on the pod, and it’s very evident that you are in the same category as someone like Warren Buffett — where it’s not necessarily the poker that’s the interesting part. Poker is just your vehicle for showing that you have mastery over your own emotions and over emotional intelligence. And so it’s really cool to hear your perspective, because I’m not going to play poker, but you’ve said many things that will change my life in a non-poker field.
Daniel: I appreciate you saying that. I’m a big believer in looking at successful people and listening to how they got there. There’s value in there. This isn’t me telling you what you need to do with your life — I’m sharing what’s worked for me. And if you hear some of it and think, “That would be beneficial for my life,” that’s how I look at other successful people too.
We didn’t get to talk about this, but it came up in my research and I wanted to say it — it’s a compliment to you. When you were talking about the young players, you said something like, “I never wanted to be the old head criticizing the way young players are playing now and how they’ve ruined the game.” You said you get really curious. You want to learn from them. You want them to coach you as much as you’re coaching them. I thought that was a great attitude. In basketball it always happens — older players criticizing the younger generation, saying they don’t get it, they’ve ruined the game. And you had a different attitude entirely.
Daniel: I appreciate it. I remember where it really happened — I was like 22 or 23, really grinding, playing with some big names, established guys. I could see them scoffing at some of the things I was doing. And I thought, under my breath, “Buddy, I’m already better than you by a lot.” That cocky young energy. And I reminded myself in that moment: never be the guy who’s the older player who looks at the young and scoffs.
Every three to four years, I’ll update my own mental software by learning the things they’re learning. Then I combine that with the wisdom of 30 years and I become really powerful as a player. But it requires humility. If you were at the top in 2004 and you think you still are today just because you rest on your laurels — no. The day you stop learning is the day everyone else starts to surpass you, because they’re going to keep learning and you’re stuck. New ideas, new solvers, new approaches — they always advance. If you don’t advance with them, you get worse by definition, because everyone else is getting better.
Wrap-Up [02:05:00]
Sam: That’s awesome, Daniel. Thanks for coming on, man. Really appreciate it.
Daniel: You got it, guys. It was fun.
Sam: All right, we appreciate you. That’s it. That’s the pod.