Karol Markowicz Show: The Art of Being an Advantage Player with Michael Kaplan

Summary

Podcast Title: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Episode: Karol Markowicz Show: The Art of Being an Advantage Player with Michael Kaplan
Host: Carol Markowitz
Guest: Michael Kaplan
Release Date: June 6, 2025

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Introduction: Meeting Michael Kaplan

The episode opens with host Carol Markowitz welcoming Michael Kaplan, an esteemed author and journalist. Michael is introduced as the author of the forthcoming book, Advantage Players, which delves into the lives of individuals who excel in gambling and extend their expertise beyond the casino floor. With an impressive portfolio, including senior features writing at the New York Post and contributions to publications like the New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Wired, Michael brings a wealth of knowledge and firsthand experience to the conversation.

Quote:
Carol Markowitz [03:18]: "My guest today is Michael Kaplan. Michael is the author of the new book Advantage Players, which takes a look at people who are in gambling and beyond."

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The Connection: Poker and Friendship

Carol and Michael share a personal connection rooted in their shared passion for poker. They reminisce about their long-standing friendship, cemented through regular poker games in New York City, highlighting the camaraderie and competitive spirit that defines their relationship.

Quote:
Carol Markowitz [03:53]: "We met playing poker and knew each other for years because of a long-running poker game in New York City."

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Defining Advantage Players

Michael elaborates on the concept of an "advantage player," extending it beyond the realm of gambling. He defines advantage players as individuals who work exceptionally hard, are devoted to their craft, and possess the ingenuity to find unique strategies and techniques that give them an edge in various fields. This mindset is not confined to casinos but is applicable to professions like law, magic, filmmaking, and more.

Quote:
Michael Kaplan [05:35]: "I think they're people who work really, really hard... and come up with special ways of doing it."

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Notable Profiles: From Personal Battles to Casino Genius

Michael shares compelling stories of individuals featured in his book:

1. Personal Triumph: Michael opens up about his battle with mantle cell lymphoma, detailing his diagnosis and the unconventional treatment he pursued. This personal narrative underscores his resilience and strategic thinking, qualities emblematic of an advantage player.

   Quote:
   Michael Kaplan [07:26]: "I was about to get brutal chemotherapy and I found a treatment... And as of August, I've had 0% cancer in my blood."

2. Casino Savant: He introduces James Gross Jeannie, a genius at dismantling casino games. With an applied math degree from Harvard, Jeannie and his team have successfully outmaneuvered casinos, exploiting overlooked aspects of game design to secure significant winnings.

   Quote:
   Michael Kaplan [08:42]: "He understands the game better than the guys who created the game, which is pretty amazing."

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Traits of Advantage Players

The conversation delves into the defining traits that make someone an advantage player:

• Hard Work and Dedication: A relentless commitment to mastering their field.
• Creativity and Ingenuity: The ability to think outside the box and develop unique strategies.
• Confidence and Resilience: Maintaining belief in their methods despite challenges and setbacks.
• Obsessiveness and Focus: An unwavering focus on their goals, often going to great lengths to achieve them.

Quote:
Michael Kaplan [29:15]: "The drive, like this drive and never, never giving up and, like, just doing it."

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Personal Anecdotes: Betting for Heidi Fleiss

Michael recounts a memorable story from his poker and gambling days involving Heidi Fleiss, the infamous Hollywood madam. When Heidi reached her betting limit at casinos, Michael took it upon himself to place bets on her behalf. Although she lost the bet he made for her, the experience highlighted Michael's dedication and willingness to support his friends, embodying the essence of an advantage player.

Quote:
Michael Kaplan [11:45]: "And she lost the bet. She lost the bet... She didn't care. I felt bad."

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Advantage Player Mindset in Life and Parenting

Michael reflects on how the advantage player mindset extends beyond gambling into everyday life and parenting. He emphasizes teaching his children to seek out positive expected value (EV) in every decision, encouraging them to find more efficient and rewarding ways to approach tasks and opportunities.

Advice to Children:
"Show them things and say, listen, there's a better way to do every single thing... Encourage your kids to see where expected value is."

Quote:
Michael Kaplan [09:15]: "I would turn my kids into mini advantage players. I think I would just show them a way to look at the world a little bit differently."

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Developing the Advantage Player Trait

When questioned whether being an advantage player is innate or learned, Michael asserts that while some individuals may have a natural knack, the traits can certainly be developed through hard work, relentless pursuit of improvement, and a strategic mindset.

Quote:
Michael Kaplan [31:41]: "I think anybody could make themselves an advantage player at something... It’s the advantage player mindset."

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Comparisons with Poker: Seeking Beatable Games

Carol draws parallels between the advantage player mindset and their shared poker experiences, emphasizing the importance of finding winnable opportunities rather than always aiming for the most comfortable or high-stakes environments.

Quote:
Carol Markowitz [33:16]: "Maybe I've been looking for the cushy chairs and missing the places where winning is easier."

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Final Insights: Maximizing Life Through Advantage Play

As the conversation wraps up, Michael offers his best tip for listeners: embrace diverse experiences, be open to learning, and nurture empathy. He advocates for maximizing life's opportunities by seeking out new experiences, continuous learning, and fostering positive relationships.

Conclusion Quote:
Michael Kaplan [36:08]: "Take trips to as exotic a place as you could find... Listen to a lot of music, read a lot, just enjoy life and be nice."

---

Closing Remarks

Carol Markowitz concludes the episode by encouraging listeners to explore Michael Kaplan's book, Advantage Players, available wherever books are sold. She praises the book's innovative concept and expresses excitement for its potential to inspire a broader audience.

Quote:
Carol Markowitz [36:28]: "Also, he is Michael Kaplan. Check out his book, Advantage Players, anywhere books are sold."

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Key Takeaways

• Advantage Player Mindset: A strategic approach to finding and maximizing edges in various aspects of life.
• Traits of Success: Hard work, creativity, resilience, and a relentless pursuit of improvement.
• Application Beyond Gambling: The principles of advantage play can enhance personal growth, professional endeavors, and parenting.
• Inspiration and Philosophy: Embracing diverse experiences and fostering empathy can lead to a more fulfilling and successful life.

Michael Kaplan's insights provide a compelling look into how the advantage player mindset can be a powerful tool for achieving success and fulfillment beyond the gambling table.

Transcript

[Carol Markowitz]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Michael Kaplan]

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[Carol Markowitz]

Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. My guest today is Michael Kaplan. Michael is the author of the new book Advantage Players, which takes a look at people who are in gambling and beyond. He's also a senior features writer at the best newspaper in the country, the New York Post, and the gambling columnist for Cigar Aficionado. He has written four other books and has done stories for publication that include the New York Times Magazine, gq and Wired. Hi Michael. So nice to have you on.

[Unknown]

Hi Carol. It's so great to see you. Thank you for having me.

[Carol Markowitz]

Our connection story is, I think, very cool. We met playing poker and knew each other for years because of a long running poker game in New York City. Shout out to our friend Charlie, are you still playing?

[Unknown]

I do, I do. I mean, it seems a little bit more sporadic because Charlie's always traveling and you know, I don't know, sometimes he'll have it and because he does it on Saturday nights now, so sometimes that can be tougher to make. Friday nights were perfect, you know. Yeah, it can be tougher, but yeah, I love playing in that game. It's so much fun. Meet the coolest people there and most you could lose is $60 unless you start playing cash, which can get worse.

[Carol Markowitz]

The cash game gets, gets kind of nuts afterwards. But yeah, the tournament is a low stakes tournament, but it's super fun and super competitive, despite the fact that you could only lose $60.

[Unknown]

And it's so organized. I mean, I've played a lot of, you know, I don't know, let's say underground poker clubs in New York that had tournaments that were way less organized than Charlie's. It's like, it's great. Now he lays out all this amazing, great selection of whiskeys and tequilas and stuff and it's just, it's fun. It's so much fun. I brought people there who like, knew almost nothing about poker and they had a blast playing. It's really a good time.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, it's a. And I meet people from that game all over the place. Like oh, you know, it just. It's a wide field, people. Your book sounds like it's going to be just about gamblers, but you also talk about everyday advantage players who are lawyers and strippers and magicians and movie directors. What's the connection between all of them?

[Unknown]

I think they're people who work really, really hard. Like, that's. That's the main thing. I mean, like, to do this stuff, you have to work really, really hard and be devoted to completely to your craft. I mean, I think there's that. And I also think that there are people who kind of figure out a way to do things that other people can't figure out. And I don't think anybody sits there and says, oh, I'm going to think outside of the box. I'm going to come up with a new way of doing it. But I do think that there are people who think about what they do enough that they come up with special ways of doing it. So. And I think that people who maybe take a more casual approach to what they're doing won't think about it as much and won't come up with those kinds of techniques or strategies to do special things. I mean, it's like those guys, the Safdie Brothers. I mean, they're these amazing directors. You know, Uncut Gems was their first giant hit, but before that they did a movie called called Good Times, which was how I found out about them. And their movies are loaded. Like they'll star people who've never acted in mov movies before. And I talked to Ron Shelton and he explained to me because he used a lot of professional athletes in some of his movies like Bull Durham and Tin cup. And he was saying it's so hard to get performances out of people who don't know how to do it. Acting is really, really hard. But somehow the Safdie brothers managed to get these amazing, super believable performances, and they figured out a way to do it that other directors, you know, can't or won't. So I find it really fascinating, these people who come up with ways of doing things that other people either haven't thought of or can't think of or won't think of.

[Carol Markowitz]

What's your favorite of the advantage players you feature in the book?

[Unknown]

Well, okay, so, you know, my favorite, of course, is the epilogue of the book talks about me being diagnosed with an incurable cancer called mantle cell lymphoma.

And.

And I was about to get brutal chemotherapy and I found a treatment that was created by a doctor in Australia for this very rare disease. And I mean, it used no chemo. It involved taking six pills a day and that do very specific targeted things to the cancer and getting an infusion every eight weeks of this drug called rituximab. And as of August, I've had 0% cancer in my blood. That's after having been diagnosed with what was essentially stage four cancer. My bone marrow was like 40% cancer. So that guy is my favorite advantage player in the book. He's the number one guy for me. But I also love. I mean, there's a. There's a guy named James Gross Jean who's like a genius at beating casino games. And this guy will figure out ways to beat games that casinos view as unbeatable or run these involved computer programs and find, you know, things in the game that people who created the game overlooked. Like, he understands the game better than the guys who created the game, which is pretty amazing.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And then I'll bring in his team and they've taken millions and millions of dollars out of casinos. And he works really, really hard. I mean, the guy's got, you know, an applied math degree from Harvard, so he could have done a lot of different things and he chose to go that route. And I mean, the stuff he does is, is pretty amazing.

[Carol Markowitz]

Somebody help their child grow up to be an advantage player. Like, what, what advice would you give if you were, you know, parenting from day one? I know your girls are post college now, probably, right.

[Unknown]

One's about to graduate and one is out of college. Yeah, I kind of wish I did.

[Carol Markowitz]

Think if you were starting it all over again, what would you tell them?

[Unknown]

I would turn my kids into mini advantage players. I think I would just show them a way to look at the world a little bit differently. Like to look at situations and maybe see than what immediately meets the eye. Like, I mean, from, you know, like the people who are advantage players do everything the right way. Like, they'll walk to a place the shortest way possible. They'll realize that, oh, if you drive 55 miles instead of 60 miles, 55 miles an hour instead of 60 miles an hour, it reduces your likelihood of getting to an accident by saying, I mean, I would. I think, I think it's a matter of like showing them things and saying, listen, there's a better way to do every single thing. You know, it's like, you know, when people talk about positive ev, you know, positive expected value. I mean, that exists in everything, not just like a hand of cards or a stock market investment or something like that and I think I would encourage my kids to see where expected value is and like to learn about that and to learn that there's two ways to do everything. And, you know, you could do it the way that's going to be the most profitable, the most rewarding, or the most beneficial to maybe many people. I think that's kind of it, maybe.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's funny that positive expected value. I remember in the poker forums, like when somebody would mention a girlfriend, it would be like, oh, that's a negative expected value.

[Unknown]

Exactly, exactly. People who do this, everything is about Evie, right?

[Carol Markowitz]

Absolutely. So in the book, you mentioned you placed a bet for Heidi Fleiss, the famous Hollywood madam, when she couldn't make one herself. What was that story about?

[Unknown]

Oh, well, there was a. There was a period of time. Okay, so this is kind of a little bit of a story. Whenever I come to Vegas, I used to play on a pretty big card counting team. I still like to card count, but not for giant stakes or anything. Heidi loves to gamble at blackjack, so whenever we hang out, we'll play blackjack together. And the great thing about playing with Heidi is she just wants to gamble. So she'll let me sit there and count and jump in when it gets good. And I said to her, I said, you know, it's bad for you for me to do this. She goes, I don't care. I'm just gambling. You can do whatever you want. Which, well, you should at least raise your bet if you see me voting.

[Carol Markowitz]

She's like, okay, that's anti advantage playing. Really?

[Unknown]

Yeah, exactly. And I said to her, I said, listen, I go, you got to know I'm the biggest nit. I won't even make a bet, a sports bet, unless I know. Somebody told me, who knows what they're talking about, that that was, you know, a good bet to make. And she goes, oh, do you know, do you know, do you know anybody who could talk about ncaa? It was like there was, you know, it was during the basketball season. Do you have any good NCAA picks for this weekend? I'm like, well, there's one guy I know who would tell me, but he hates, he hates giving out picks because he bets all the time. And if you bet once in a while and you lose, he's going to feel bad. And so I. This guy, she knew who he was. He was excited. I called him. He loved her. He goes, I will give you picks for Heidi Fleiss. So we were betting all the time and she couldn't. I don't know, I think that she, I don't know why she couldn't get down somewhere there was a place where she wanted to bet and for some reason they wouldn't take her bet. Maybe, I don't know, I don't remember now what. The situation wasn't for a lack of money, that was for sure. Maybe she might have her limit. Oh, I think that she had a, there was a limit every day of how much you could bet. I think she had hit her limit. So she asked me to place a bet for her. So I think she bet like two grand on some sports, you know, on some NCAA game that, that this guy Alan Boston told us to bet on. And yeah, I made the bet without even thinking twice. And the second I made the bet, the money was, you know what I mean, in my account. I mean. But yeah, I was very happy to make a bet for Heidi. She's awesome. She lost that bet. She lost the bet. Yeah. She didn't care. I felt bad. I go, oh my God. I go, I feel bad that you lost. She goes, she goes, she goes. I'm a big girl. I've lost a lot of bets. It didn't really bother her, which was the right answer, you know.

[Carol Markowitz]

We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz Show.

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[Carol Markowitz]

Do you think of yourself as an advantage player?

[Unknown]

I think of myself as an advantage player in some ways. I mean, I certainly was an advantage player. Blackjack, I'm an advantage player at kind of low buy in poker tournaments with bad players. I think of myself as being a bit of an advantage player in life. I mean, I certainly was when I got diagnosed with the cancer and I made sure I found the best possible treatment. I didn't just settle for getting brutal chemo. I think when I do think as a journalist, I think I'm a bit of an advantage player. How I approach stories and how I interview people, I mean, I'll ask questions sometimes that may seem a little weird and it kind of gets things going and I never take no for an answer from people. I really, really get them. I really try to get what I can get out of them. And I think also becoming a journalist in itself was like a mega advantage play because it's just been the greatest life. I've gotten to meet so many cool people, traveled all over the world doing stories. I've had amazing experiences, get to write for a living. I mean, that's pretty good. That's an advantage play in and of itself. So yeah, I do think of myself as an advantage player and I try, I do try to find edges at things. I mean, not always like as obsessed as some people who just do it for a living are like. I mean, I like positive ev, but I'm. I probably should be more positive ev driven than I am. I shouldn't let it. I shouldn't leave anything on the table. But I do because sometimes it's worth.

[Carol Markowitz]

It to do that, yeah, it's hard. It's hard to find the positive ev and everything. I don't know that I'm an advantage player. I'm a sometimes advantage player.

[Unknown]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Carol Markowitz]

What do you worry about?

[Unknown]

That's an interesting question. I worry a lot about whatever's in front of me at that moment. It's like, because I go for this infusion of rituximab every eight weeks. So every seven weeks, I worry. Like, I'm like, oh, right. Creak in my back. Oh, my finger hurt me. Oh, I was coughing. Like, the cancer is back. The doctor says, don't worry. Like, it's not going to come roaring back in, you know, in eight weeks. But so I worry about when that's in front of me. When I was doing this book, I endlessly worried about, like, every little page, every little comma, every word. Drove the publisher crazy. Like, I worry about exactly what's in front of me. Like, if something's going on with my kids, I worry about that in the moment, but I don't sit around worrying about them. It's weird. Like, I seem to worry a lot about whatever I'm focused on at that moment. Like, right now, I'm worried about getting a lot of publicity for this book and selling books and pushing it hard and turning people on to, like, this way of thinking and hoping that they get inspired by the book.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, absolutely. I could see this book being. I think it's a. It's a really good concept.

[Unknown]

I appreciate the optimism.

[Carol Markowitz]

I mean, we're in this moment of everybody's trying to maximize their potential and learn the better way to do things, and the Advantage Player guide of, you know, try to do everything in your life as most efficiently and in the best way as possible. I really. I could see that resonating.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I hope that people see it and they get inspiration from it. And. Because it was funny, I was talking, and I think people like the term advantage player. Like, if you're. If you're in the gambling world, like, you know, that's like, pretty common term among casino gamblers, but people who don't, don't do that. It's not really that known of a term. I mean, I was. I was. Somebody said to me, well, what's the formula? I'm like, well, it's not the kind of book where there's, like, a formula. I kind of have to. It kind of should inspire you on how to think rather than, oh, if you do these three things, you're gonna Be a millionaire and. Or a billionaire.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. Well, if you have those three things, let us know.

[Unknown]

Oh, I will, I will, I will employ them, don't worry. But you know, I don't know, like, I think, I think it's. Hopefully we'll show people a way to think and like kind of a philosophy a little bit for life.

[Carol Markowitz]

What would you tell your 16 year old self? What would a 16 year old Michael need to know?

[Unknown]

Tell him to work really hard to, to give, to give yourself a chance to get lucky. Like, you know, if you see an opportunity to not freeze up and not take it. I mean like I got like the one thing I got. Two things I got really lucky with were when I was like living in like a rental apartment in Manhattan, it came up for sale and I was able to buy at a reasonable price. I bought that and then the neighborhood kind of blew up. It was in Chelsea, the neighborhood blew up and I was able to sell that. And then I bought a brownstone and Park Slope and that kind of has blown up and I was like, I was able to use. I basically when I bought the place it was like, I think it was selling for. I think I had to put down a $14,000 down payment. I had 20 grand to my name and you know, I had to pay a couple grand for a lawyer. So I was left with just a few thousand dollars. But I just felt like I wanted to get lucky. I mean, I think, I think that's what I would tell myself like to see opportunities that may not seem, seem like complete locks in that moment and just if it seems right to take a shot because if you wait then you're going to lose it and to just kind of give yourself a chance to get lucky with things and to work super hard and to be focused and you know, to be a good person. And also, you know what, this is the one other thing like when you see somebody who's like even a little bit worse off than you, to have some empathy, at least have empathy, not saying oh, give that person your money, which you can, but at least have empathy for them and kind of get it that like everybody's not as, I don't know, together or well off or has going what you have going and you know, try to, I don't know, show them a little bit of love, you know.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. Did you see that trait or the empathy trait a lot in the advantage players or are they focused on themselves?

[Unknown]

It's interesting. Let me think about that. Well, I mean some, because some advantage players are Insanely generous. Like, they'll. I think it goes both ways. Like, some are crazy generous and some are so because you do have to same even being a journalist, you have to be a little bit selfish. You have to be a little bit self absorbed to do it. And you have to kind of sort of have a big enough ego. Like, it takes a lot. It takes a lot to be an advantage player. Like to walk into a casino that was like, built for billions of dollars. They've got millions of dollars in security and surveillance. They've got people there to stop people like you. That's their job. To go in there and think you could do your thing and take their money and walk out, then come back the next day and do it again. That takes, like a lot of confidence. So maybe that's another thing that I want. I would tell myself, like, to be confident that you could do things and to not get scared because there's some, you know, you know, organization or some group that's like way bigger than you kind of saying you can't do it. Like, don't let that stop you.

[Carol Markowitz]

We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz Show.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Walton Goggins]

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[Unknown]

Did.

[Carol Markowitz]

You see any particular traits in all of them? In all the people that you covered? Was there. Was there a defining trait?

[Unknown]

The drive, like this drive and never, never giving up and, like, just doing it. Like, you know, the Safdie brothers, like, people think, oh, those guys, you know, came from out of nowhere. Like, they worked so hard, like out of college. They're making industrial movies. They were making music videos. They were doing everything they can get their hands on. They made these early, like, their early movies that got them where they are. They made them for no money. I mean, you know, I don't know, like, you know, this guy. There's a guy in there, you know, I don't know, Eddie Teams. I mean, he just was relentless. I mean, like, it's funny. I met him. He's one of the guys in the book. And this guy is, like, incredibly sharp. He is a guy who would, like, look at, like, one of the things he would do is casinos would have, like, if you played enough slot machines, they would then have a drawing at the end where they'd be like, you know, the 10 biggest players of that weekend would get a chance to draw a card with a blank, you know, white back. And, you know, the worst prize is, let's say a windbreaker. And first prize, you know, is a, I don't know, you know, $50,000 car. So you want to get the $50,000 car. And he trained himself to, like, look and find the tiny little difference on that card and then to come back and play enough to be the first to. To pick and then to pick that card and win. He's won multiple cars doing stuff like that. But when I first met him, it was at a blackjack tournament, and he was Walking around with a book filled with like post it notes sticking out of the book. A blackjack tournament book. I'm like, my God, is there anything cornier? This guy brought ornament book to the tournament with all these post it notes. And I didn't know who he was at the time. Then he knew some people I knew. We sat down to have breakfast and he's talking about things he did in the tournament. I realize this guy is at a whole other level than I am. And I also found out that his bookshelves are loaded with books on all kinds of topics and they all have a zillion post it notes sticking out. And he reads them before he does anything associated to that. So I think there's an element of that kind of obsessiveness and hard work and just not giving up. That is a trait that you need.

[Carol Markowitz]

You might not know the answer to this, but are they born with it or is it something that they develop? Because I love the idea of the advantage player. I love the idea of teaching yourself to become the advantage player. But is it possible or is it just something that they came here with?

[Unknown]

I think anybody could make themselves an advantage player at something. I think everybody has the advantage player in that. You know, listen, some people are just, they just have a knack. They're born with a certain gene almost. But I think there are people who got good at something and then, you know, just push themselves to get better and better. I mean, and I don't know that something clicked in their, in their mind. I mean, that made them want to do this particular thing and just work relentlessly at it. I mean, I was talking to somebody, a friend of mine said, had a friend whose daughter is in college and she wants to be a journalist. And she was asking me about it. I said, look, I go, the thing is, if it's not the thing you. And this is like the advantage player mindset. If it's not the thing you want to do more than anything else in the world, like, don't do one of these hard things, like do something easier. If you would rather hang out with your friends than do this thing, it's probably not for you. If you'd rather hang out with your friends than go whack games in a casino, you're probably not really an advantage play like these guys. The great line from James Gross Gene is he goes, if there's a good game, I'll go to places where the cell phones don't work. Like, meaning he'll go anywhere. Like, go to the remote, remote locations. Like he's not looking to stay in fancy hotels. He's looking for games he can crush and he'll get on a plane and fly to some far flung place on no notice if there's a certain promotion or if a game is on, if there's a dealer who's giving up whole cards. I mean, you have to have that kind of drive to be successful in one of these kind of advantage playing worlds, in my opinion.

[Carol Markowitz]

When I first. Not when I first got into poker, but when I was really into poker, when my friend and I were going to Atlantic City, you know, multiple times a week or that kind of thing, we were always looking for the beatable games. And so they weren't at the comfortable casinos. They weren't at Borgata. Borgata had all the best players. They were at like the Resorts, which had two tables. That was our favorite place to play. It was two poker tables in the middle of the casino floor. So like some guy who just wanted craps would like wander over with a beer in his hand and be like, let me try some poker. I've seen it on tv. And those were the games that we wanted to play in. And people thought we were crazy. They thought, why wouldn't you want to go play in the place with the big comfy chairs and the nice room and the whatever. We'd be like, that's not where the winnable games are. And I, you know, I wonder about that in life. Like maybe, maybe I've been looking for the cushy chairs and missing the places where winning is easier.

[Unknown]

I think there's an element to that. I think there definitely is. I mean, like, we're not like the place. This is a place where I really like to play blackjack and card cat when I'm in Vegas. I don't want to say the name of it. I've been backed off from the Resilience.

[Carol Markowitz]

Resorts doesn't have a poker room anymore. It doesn't have poker anymore. So I don't even think it exists anymore. So it's okay. It's okay for me. Yeah.

[Unknown]

The total dump downtown. They have a great double deck game and it's really beatable. And like, because I don't play that much, so my skills are kind of rusty. I'm not like as sharp as I was at one point and I can go there and I feel like I'm playing the game with a little bit of an edge and it's low stakes, so I'm like, I'm able to spread without having a giant. You know what I mean? I'm not. Yeah, you can lose, Trust me. You can be in a great situation, still get crush. But I don't know. It's like, I do think there's something to be said for that. Like, for finding the thing that other people don't want to do or the place where they don't want to play.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And that's. And listen, when I say the place they don't want to play, that applies to everything in life. Like, it's not just casinos. I mean, it can be the job, the profession. You know, I talked to somebody once who was. I was doing a story actually, on people who made money in, like, unlikely professions. And it was a guy, this guy had an mba and he could have done a lot of things. And he got into the animal rank rendering business, which not a lot of people want to be in. It's not glam, trust me. It's not glamorous, you know, dealing with. But he may. He said it was the. It's the business where he was able to make a ton of money because there was just so much opportunity that was untapped. And if you were really smart and came in there, you had chances that, like, you didn't have if you went to work on Wall street where everybody's just as smart as you are.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. Yeah, that's a. That's a really, really good point. Well, I've loved this conversation. I can't wait to read Advantage Players. I leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.

[Unknown]

Say the best thing you could do is take trips to as exotic a place as you could find. Listen to a lot of music, read a lot, just enjoy life and be nice and get the most you can out of things. I don't know. I think that taking in experiences will make life better for everybody and all the people around you.

[Carol Markowitz]

Also, he is Michael Kaplan. Check out his book, Advantage Players, anywhere books are sold. Thank you so much for coming on, Michael.

[Unknown]

Thank you so much for having me. This was fantastic.

[Carol Markowitz]

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