Dan Bilzerian on Doug Polk Podcast

[HoodedN]

Live now if anyone still cares about this kinda thing. These two strongly dislike each other, so at the least it’s pretty good free entertainment.

[Sanlmar]

This is no commentary on you, Hooden. I gave it 3 minutes. Polk talking the stupefying alleged win rate as he was allegedly starting out.

I would rather hear your story than Bilzerian’s in late 2021

[Dan Druff]

In case you gave up early like Sanlmar, you might want to jump to the 20 minute mark, as the arguing starts to get good at that point.

[tigerpiper]

Bilzerian seems like a clown scamster like Mikki and whatever that low rent baccarat guy is. Just keeping the scam going longer, that's all.

[HoodedN]

I watched it on and off. Plenty of cringe if that’s your kink. At one point towards the end they actually went into a Twitter thread from the past where they were arguing about something. Reminded me of some interactions I’ve overheard between my middle school aged child and his friends.

I will say Bilzerian came off much better than I expected he would.

[Dan Druff]

I haven't watched much of it yet. I started from the 20 min mark (because someone told me that's where it's best), and then turned it off when I had to do other things.

I will watch all of it before this week's radio, and will analyze it there.

I will say that, while I agree with Polk's point that Bilzerian's stories are very suspect (and that Polk had a right to criticize Dan's broadcasted poker play), I didn't really like Polk's defense of cutting up Dan's previous interviews to make him appear to be saying he got his money from his parents.

Polk kept saying "it was a joke" and "why do you care what I think if you have $70 million", but those excuses are pretty lame. Nobody wants their reputation unfairly trashed regardless of how rich they are, and it wasn't a "joke" because Polk really does seem to think Dan got most of his money from his dad, and cut up videos to portray he was saying that. I never liked the "oh I was just joking" defense when someone is trashing you publicly.

With that said, when you posture as the most successful poker player of all time yet provide no proof, and have an Instagram with millions of followers as a result of all that posturing, you have to be able to take some ribbing and criticism without flipping out.

[BeerAndPoker]

I watched most of this and it's very painful.

Both of these guys have egos which is fine it's brought them to the place they are in life but it creates friction when you sit them down to talk.

Polk approach isn't good at all when asks Dan about where he got his money. Doug continues to grill Dan about online play, etc...

When Dan says he didn't get anything from his parents (believe whatever you want with that) the questions Polk should be asking Dan are:

- How and when did he get started in poker?
- How much money did he have for a starting bankroll and how did he build it up?
- How long did it take to build up a good bankroll and what were the key moments to getting enough money to play in these huge private games?

Polk focuses too much on where did you play online, what games did you play in, what screen names did you play as, etc... While these are are valid questions when Dan can't remember them it's time to switch approaches to try and get answers such as asking the sample questions I mention above.

Dan never has revealed how he made his money to play in the big home games. He says it's from poker but my guess is he had access to some family money, even if it's a 100k to 200k in order to start off playing. I highly doubt Dan ever had to play low stakes stuff like 10c/25c NL online.

Doug is a click baitor. He lets SrslySirius do those editing bits for humor. Some are funny but I side with Dan here with the editing "I get my money from my parents" cutting out the full phrase being a misrepresentation.

Whether it's meant to be a joke when you have a reputation of people thinking you're a trust fund baby if someone does editing bits like this for a joke it can be extra damaging to ones reputation because some people already believe that, or were on the fence now believing it.

Do I think this has hurt Dan's reputation that much?

Not at all, but you can't blame him for being mad about it.

[limitles]

Blizerian obv. takes everything too seriously, especially if he is a millionaire but
can we rate the hair ?

I'm going 1,3,2

[Dan Druff]

Great post by BeerAndPoker.

From what I've seen so far, that's basically my take, as well.

Doug was questioning him like an opposing trial lawyer, rather than conducting a good interview and trying to get the subject to open up.

Can someone explain where their previous issues originated? If you remember, when the whole Vanessa Kade "hoe" situation happened last year, where Bilzerian was seen as the villain by most of poker, Polk was one of his few defenders. So it's not like Polk is always coming at him. However, it's clear that these two had existing issues -- maybe because of that edited video Bilzerian was mad about?

Overall, Polk dropped the ball on this one.

[BCR]

I listened starting at 20 minutes for a bit. I mean he describes his fathers finances as if he is a traditional straight up guy. Like he may be entirely typical for a takeover guy, I don’t know that world, but I had an uncle who worked for Eddie Debartolo. He was the wealthiest guy here locally owning the Niners.

I recall his father and Debartolo getting caught in shit and it making big news here. I recall he went to prison. He was a takeover guy who was involved in citizenship through investment stuff after souring on the government

The notion he wouldn’t have been able to funnel/hide money through his son strikes me as pure nonsense. This was a super shrewd guy who hated the US government. His dad was a veteran of Vietnam, who ended up attending Harvard and viewed the US gov’t as on a witch-hunt for some of his practices.

So his dad is really impressive. Props. But the whole Bilzarian skepticism comes from his poker origin story always feels like obvious bullshit, he doesn’t come off as either smart or substantive, and if he’s telling the truth, I don’t think anyone is still ever going to believe him.

It doesn’t matter. He lives an opulent life and seems to have a good time regardless if he earned it or inherited it. If he doesn’t care for the opinion of the poker community, why do segments catered specifically to it? He does seem to have some insecurity around people buying his story of rags to riches. I don’t. Most aren’t going to.

He just doesn’t strike me as credible or sharp.. He seems like a dude who would be fun to party with and not some horrible ogre, but doesn’t come off as particularly adept at anything beyond self-promotion. That’s always been my take on him.

[gut]

[Sanlmar]

In case you gave up early like Sanlmar, you might want to jump to the 20 minute mark, as the arguing starts to get good at that point.

I took a shot at 20:00. It rapidly devolved into the middle schooler shit HoodedN described.

Based on what the guys say here and my quick impression - Blizarian seems like a nice person. In the few minutes of confrontation I watched he kept it civil.

For all the girls, models for hire and borderline misogynous hijinks - Blizarian has come out the other side of the #MeToo cleansing unscathed. Right?

He never acted the entitled asshole. Gotta give him that respect. That’s worth a lot in my book.

[randomguy]

In case you gave up early like Sanlmar, you might want to jump to the 20 minute mark, as the arguing starts to get good at that point.

I took a shot at 20:00. It rapidly devolved into the middle schooler shit HoodedN described.

Based on what the guys say here and my quick impression - Blizarian seems like a nice person. In the few minutes of confrontation I watched he kept it civil.

For all the girls, models for hire and borderline misogynous hijinks - Blizarian has come out the other side of the #MeToo cleansing unscathed. Right?

He never acted the entitled asshole. Gotta give him that respect. That’s worth a lot in my book.

Well there was the time he kicked a girl in the face at a Miami nightclub .... https://www.joe.ie/life-style/video-...n-miami-478201

Polk didn't do a great job in the interview and wasn't prepared for Dan's firm rebuttal and issue he has with Doug's video. I think it is obvious watching Doug's video that it was a joke and has humor in it and most of Doug's videos have that same tone. There is always some truth in every joke but Dan's reaction is over the top. Bilzerien does an insane amount of mental gymnastics to sleep at night and live up to the charachter he pretends to be I think. He clearly says things that are ridiculous and untrue and easy to disprove. He contradicts himself in sentences throughout the interview. I don't believe a word this guy says. He also said on Rogan that he doesn't pay the girls and there's no chance that's true. He spent a lot of his company's money on his party's and model expenses etc.

Dan made so many ridiculous and outrageous claims in that interview. He literally made the claim that he has won more money in poker than anyone, he turned $10k into $186K at the Bellagio in 3 weeks playing $10/$20, is the OG and a poker pioneer, never got any money from his father, and will be favorite against Doug in a heads up match. He said that the amount of money won is the scoreboard for poker players and he said nobody has made more than him so he is also the GOAT. It's not hard to see how full of it he is and all you have to do is have a basic understanding of mathematics and the game of poker. Poker is a game of small edges and no matter how good one player against another, the edge simply is not that much. The only way someone could have won as much as he claims is by cheating. I don't think he cheated to get his money, I just think he is a liar. He is an ambassador for GGPoker which rips people off and is a complete scam poker site so I'm not surprised they wanted to sign another pathological liar. I thought Dan was a decent guy until I saw him kick a girl in the face. You're just a bad guy if you do that. I don't care how messed up you are, you can't be doing that. I've been really fucked up a time or two and been really angry and a female and never once did I think about kicking or hitting them. It's a different kind of evil to have that in you.

I'd like to see these play a heads up match but Dan will never do it and I don't think Doug will either. Dan is such a piece of shit that he didn't even play the girl that won a tournament where the prize was to play Dan in a heads up game. That's pretty shitty and he didn't do that because he was afraid he might lose so he has to protect his lies about being the greatest poker player of all time. It's just pathetic and cowardly.

[HoodedN]

I’ve always been a fan of Doug but it’s very clear that his handlings of all things Bilzerian in the past have been purely for clout. Doug is a very smart guy and obviously their Twitter battles lured some of the more poker-curious of Bilzerian’s following to check out his content. Cool. I’ll give him props for being a good self promoter but I’m not one for the clickbait.

It’s always felt funny to me that the poker community has this obsession with solving the mystery of the origins of Bilzerian’s bankroll. I will say he sounded pretty believable in this interview but even if it’s all bullshit, why should I care? Why should we care? It’s not like anyone in the poker world was affected by his dad’s illegal gains during his career.

I wanted Doug to nail this interview but my guess is it was a last minute booking based on the extremely short notice he gave that Dan would be on and he didn’t have enough time to prepare. Lol at Dan answering every question with “it’s in the book”, though.

[garrett]

Dan Bilzerian in my honest opinion, is a different Variable in this Poker world

On the poker table except some super high dollar buy in stuff, I dont think he has ever even tried to win much like verifiably im a poker player winner, etc kind of things WSOP/WSOPc/WPT/EPT/LAPT or something else more known. And honestly to me that doesnt always matters and I do know how also reclusive poker minds can maybe be, and like to be Anonymous and unknown but in 2021 and today that is just insane to think, you're not unkown anymore, none of you just so you know. Also this 'Metaverse' concept also is, Public Ledger life everything you do transactionally, with who, all of it becomes known in the Public Ledger Life, anyway not important but.

Dan Bilzerian has been another and much bigger Poker related person, and whether he got it all from his dad or not, i really do not think it is anyone's business anyway. I'll tell you all a little secret probably unknown to some but, I grew up all my life in a super small, uber Exclusive Jersey Shore town there, and kids i know grew up with all get massive inheritances. In the wealthy world actually, wealthy, like 1-3%'r wealthy leaving inheritances and wealth behind is a part of normal life for these people, but anyway i moved out of there 12 years ago now and wow, things i realize now there are not the same everywhere else as is true with a few other places in the Country i also realize too, and maybe to a certain point in life i wanted to be immune to things or blind to some.

Dan Bilzerian whether you agree with him or not, like him or not, it doesn't really matter in that he obviously does get beautiful women lives a pretty good life, Also these interview is fascinating in that Doug Polk is one of the few who could ever even pull this off, and do this take the Contrarian line here lol, and i think it was great honestly well done Polker =)

by some peoples measure in many ways, and aside from this world and poker playing Dan Bilzerian is a big time winner, actually. And he doesnt have to ever prove to anyone anything about where money he has came from. As i think that is not necessary for others as well, so I get how Bilzerian would NOT want people to know his very internal and person affairs, youre cut wide open and exposed then. And who even on this site honestly, would ever want that, no one...

I think the other stories not jsut the major Tourny headlines and htings has been fun and with Bilzerian he has been that, another poker related person, topic happening at some period over time lol, I have noticed it all and thought, he has it pretty good and who would ever want you to think their mom and dad gave them everything, even if only a little bit, it is n ones business honestly. And also it is VERY understandable why he himself, would want that very exact part of it all to be kept to himself maybe. Maybe Dan Bilzarian actually takes that ONE point more sincerely than anything else. And so some would know right there, that is a good nerve to strike with him if you wanted to get him out of line, and thinking lol, but i think hes aight and fun, stories over time made me laugh, and the women dont hurt they always fine too lol, anyway fun stuff..

[Dan Druff]

Dan is full of shit regarding the $400k month on Bodog.

Bodog was never a high stakes site. You could only play as high as 10/20 NL or 30/60 limit. The NL, you could only buy a max of 100 BB when you sat, which meant you could sit with no more than $2000 in those games.

That would mean he'd have to average 6.5 buyin wins per day, for 30 days, which there's no chance he did. He claimed this happened in 2007. Nope. Just three years later, still prior to Black Friday, I was on Bodog a ton. I mostly played limit, but occasionally dabbled in NL. There was a tracking site called pokertableratings. Some of you probably remember it. It wasn't perfect, but it did pretty well at giving you a rough estimate of how people were doing. The top NL winner had something like +400k. That's for the entire year of 2010. And Bilzerian claims he did that in a month, just 3 years earlier? GTFO.

Also, keep in mind that screen names on Bodog weren't anonymous -- only on Bovada, which came about years later. When Bilzerian blew up, tons of people from 2007 Bodog were still around in poker. Had "blitzforce" been dominating those games regularly, we would have heard about it.

The likely truth is that Bilzerian had a good month there (not 400k by any means), and then chunked most of it back off.

He also calls himself one of the OGs of online poker, which is totally false. The OGs of online poker date back to the 1999-2001 era. I know, because I was there. If Erik123 (Erik Sagstrom) or bobcards/tsoprano (Brock Parker) want to claim that title, I'll give it to them. Not Dan Bilzerian, who probably didn't sign onto an online poker site until the mid-2000s.

Some of you might remember that I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal regarding Bilzerian. I didn't have much to tell them, except for one story -- that I was one of the first to encounter Bilzerian in a live poker room, in January 2007. You can read the story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dan-bil...ker-1410897368

Notice that Bilzerian said that my story of his arrival in poker "sounds about right". Notice that there were no stories about his online poker antics in the WSJ article. It really does look like Bilzerian probably played a bit online in 2006, and then showed up in Tahoe with that suitcase full of $100k cash, and that was his entry into the the live poker world.

[sonatine]

couple of thoughts...

1) doug seems genuinely afraid to simply write off the snarky editing as satire because i think he wants his cake / eat it too, and he doesnt want to say 'it was edited to portray the common sense reality of the situation' because doing so opens the door to him kinda being held accountable for slander on someone with the financial resources to fuck him up but good.

2) dan is a carnival barker clown and a garden variety narcissist who pinned his entire schtick to poker, of all things. for anyone so patently basic to demand to be taken seriously on literally any level is honestly kind of morbidly fascinating.

great take:

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https://twitter.com/twt/status/1476310887321387010

[Jayjami]

There are about 50 great poker players in the world. There are about 5000 that ran good and now think they’ve mastered the game. Dan is one of the latter. He took advantage of weak games. Kudos to him, that has always been my strategy, and it works.

[Ryback_feed_me_more]

The twitter shade after the podcast was funnier. Srslysirus getting in on it and then some dude asking who the hell he was.

[Ryback_feed_me_more]

Live now if anyone still cares about this kinda thing. These two strongly dislike each other, so at the least it’s pretty good free entertainment.

Bilzarian can claim all he wants daddy didnt give him a nice trust fund but anybody with half a fucking brain knows its a lie. Hell he had to be bailed out of the mess he made with his cannabis company. Seriously how the fuck does somebody shit the bed in the marajuana biz in Nevada of all places?? You have to be pretty inept in business to accomplish that. Just curious whos calling the shots now since Bill Perkins and some others injected capital into the business. Im guessing its not Dan.