#114 The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th.
One of the players had just returned from the Bellagio. In the poker room, he saw the son of a poker world champion and some Texas banker playing heads up Texas Hold'em with over $15 million on the table. The amount simply would not register in my mind. I remembered from my earlier poker days stories about Doyle Brunson and Puggy Pearson playing rounds of golf for more money than Jack Nicholas and Lee Trevino made in a year. I overheard pros describing their winnings in inches of $100 bills.
But $15 million on the table? This much cash would weigh over 250 pounds.
Don't ask how I know this. Suffice to say that people who weigh bundles of $100 bills keep a low profile. It just seemed like more money than even a phenomenal poker player could accumulate. Much less risk in one game.
The banker's place in the game didn't make sense at all. But he's a billionaire, another player told me when I tried writing this off as Urban Legend. Even if the banker could throw around that kind of money, why would he? That curiosity started me on the road to the richest poker game of all time and took me inside the world of high-stakes poker.
For most of a year, I learned about the unusual and impressive skills that separate the best players from the rest of the field. The enormity of their successes and failures and their shortcomings, which almost always stem from their strengths.
I also had the privilege of witnessing the problem-solving skills of that Texas banker, Andy Beal.
Beal, one of the great entrepreneurial minds of the information age, had accumulated great wealth, yet managed to remain almost completely anonymous. In fact, the Bellagio allowed him to register under the name Anonymous.
From the time he was an 11-year-old buying broken televisions for a dollar and fixing and reselling them for 30 or $40, to purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars of bonds and California utilities and airlines when most investors were writing off those businesses, he has never been afraid to venture into new areas, teach himself the rules, challenge the experts and prevailing wisdom, and measure the results.
His approach to poker and to risk itself is unique.
By ignoring and even contradicting conventional wisdom, he became extremely wealthy.
His hobbies made him an important and credible figure in science and mathematics, areas in which he had no formal education.
As I learned more about his improbable career and unique approach to financial intellectual issues, I wondered why can't a wealthy, smart, determined person figure out a way to compete on even footing with top professional poker players.
Most important, I learned what a capricious game poker can be and what a difficult profession it can be even for its expert practitioners.
In fact, when I started, I thought the central question of this book would be why Bill would attempt something so apparently foolhardy, taking on the best in the world at their game. But by the end of the story, the more pertinent question is why the professionals continued to take up his challenge.
By the time the stakes reached their peak, the pros were potentially risking everything on an edge they realized was virtually non-existent.
Okay, so that is from the beginning of the book that I'm gonna talk to you about today, which is The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide King, Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time, and it was written by Michael Craig. Before I jump into the book, I wanna tell you how this podcast came to be. All the way back on Founders No. 38, I did a podcast on the book Space Barrens, and that book goes into the strategies by a bunch of modern day entrepreneurs and how they build private space companies. So they talk about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and Richard Branson, and they also mention Andy Beale. So for that podcast, I decided, hey, I'm gonna limit the scope of of what I talk about with, because I found it most interesting that Elon and Jeff were taking vastly different strategies for similar goals, right? But I also brought up during that podcast how I found, I wanted more books on Andy Beale and I couldn't find any, because I found him such a weird, unique character. And I had a bunch of people reach out to me and say, hey, there is a book on Andy Beale, and it's this book. And then once I was made aware of the book, I obviously bought the book, and then what happened is, I have a stack of books, probably close to 100 by this time, that I'm going to eventually get around to turning into founders episodes. But once I was made aware of the fact that this book existed, I then started seeing it everywhere. I'd see constant recommendations on social media, it would make a list of the most recommended, the top books for entrepreneurs and investors. After reading it, that makes perfect sense. So I just want to point out one thing. I get a lot of messages about people saying how much they're learning from the podcast. Just know that it is a two-way street. There's so many entrepreneurs that didn't know existed, so many books that didn't know existed if it wasn't for you. So I just want to make you aware of that. And then if you ever have any books or people you want me to study, please keep these recommendations coming because a lot of them are outside of my view. I don't even know these people exist. So you're being very helpful. Okay, let's jump right into the book. Now here's the thing. This is a little different. I'm going to focus, what I'm going to talk to you about is mainly on the characteristics of Andy Beal that I think can make him unique, characteristics we might want to copy in our lives. He's had extreme success in many different fields. I think people like that are definitely worthy of study. And I'm also going to talk about the similarities of poker players.