P. g. is the only josh josh has been in and around the game of poker his entire adult life and his racked up more than eight point. One million dollars in lifetime a multi table tournament cashes. I feel like i'm in danger of going. Full troy mcclure in this intro. But you may remember mr ari from the time. He got third in the two thousand four. Waso p main event. The year that passed cpg guest gregg fossil remer went. The distance also may remember him from his to w. s. o. p. e. gold bracelet victories or from the legendary bad. Beat he put on bryce yawkey at the final table at the fifty thousand dollar poker players championship. Playing deuce to seven triple draw. It was a particularly brutal hand where he busted poor mr yawkey despite being a more than ninety nine percent underdog one thing that tends to get left out. That story by the way is the fact that josh commanding gyp lead for handed and doubling up. Yawkey would have only cost him about fifteen percent of his stack. Another fun little story about that. Event is at one of my closest friends. The man i have to give a hat tip to for introducing josh and i in the first place actually bought a rather large piece of mr. Rei for that event and what brice yawkey didn't know he had going against him is at my friend runs. Absurdly hot backing players so spiking a one percenter was honestly kind of expected but when it comes to having a rich colorful successful journey through the world of gambling and playing poker it's hard to find them more compelling character than josh he is undeniably live a fulfilling life of high adventure on the green felt chasing poker greatness and in today's episode featuring the one and only josh aria. You're going to learn josh origin story into the world of poker and playing cards. What josh was feeling thinking and experiencing at that legendary thousand four main event final table. The project josh is currently working on. That will very likely fire you up and much much more so now without any further ado i bring to you a fearless gambler who has stood the test of time to one and only josh. Are you mr aria. How're you doing. Sarah good morning. I'm doing great man. How about you brad. I'm doing quite well doing quite well. We're just reminiscing about some old private games of atlanta's passed some ghosts in my closet. Let's keep those. Let's kick those in the past. Yeah it's good. It's good talking to people who've experienced similar things. I think where you know you can kind of. Sometimes this journey like when things go down like that it's very loan so it's a very lonely avenue by yourself so talking to people who've experienced stuff you know it's good good for my spirit the very It's a single sport so you never get You don't really get to Share yours sorrows and you know nobody wants to hear your bad beat stories than but now it's like we're both saying them together. It's like we're a team team of bad stories. Genuine bad beats though like legit bat. I typically start this show out by asking about your story through cards and this might be a long story and this might be the only question that we ask on the show so How old were you or how old are you now. When did you start playing cards. Was that look lighten. I'm forty six now. I started playing cards when i was eighteen. Seventeen eighteen. I don't really remember. It was back like ours. So i i used to play a lot of pool and i gambled playing pool. I was never into drinking and doing drugs and like everybody in my high school. My high school was a lot of drugs. A lot of drinking. And i found my way to the pool halls and everybody like everybody at the pool hall would sit around at dot gamble and try to get any edge that they could possibly get like. It's insane how big knits. Everybody was but the second that the pool room would close. Everybody would pull up barstools to a pool table and the bartender would start dealing poker. Well i was always good at math. So i started realize it came second nature to see that like. Oh wow this guy. Put all his money with the flush draw and there's only x. amount of cards that he can make flush with and blah blah blah. So i started poker. Really intrigued me So every night after the pool room would close. We would start a poker game and that evolved to no. We don't want josh play bla-bla-bla blah some like you got kicked out of your first game. Yeah yeah and then. I found out i've found home games in atlanta like one and two dollar games and i would just go broke every time. i was way too aggressive to play limit ochre Limit poker was real huge. No limit hadn't made its boom yet. And i would have. These huge swings of going broke building. A bankroll going broke building. Bankroll no bankroll management at all. I'd go broke. I'd go get a job. Get paycheck for two hundred In then Excuse me i found bigger gains around town and start building my bankroll up in every time i build my bankroll up i would drive up luxy and play poker against the big boys and i would always look over at the the twenty forty limit table like man one day. Hope to play in that game. And so i would just build my bankroll up and drive down. Gopro can come back and build it back up again and go down and finally I started doing good. And and i just i always made it a point and i told you earlier that i don't wanna go broke the same way twice so i always would just like i'd go broke and i would sit in those feelings and and learn from those feelings that i don't wanna feel this way. What is causing these feelings. And where did that come from that ability to sit with your emotions and because this is the healthy way to deal with it and i think lots of people kind of bury it in the backyard and then they explode one day but like just apple five always. I've always been a huge competitor. Played sports my whole life and whether it's any kind of competition it doesn't matter what it is and i i've lost a lot in poker. You have to deal with losing a lot so along the way I just don't look at losses as i look at him as learning experiences. And it's it's a very used up analogy. But it's just what i've done since i was a kid. The pain of losing hurts. And i want to understand why didn't Performed the best of my ability. And so i guess i was lucky to be able to analyze that at a young age. Then in like nineteen knicks. Maybe nine hundred ninety six or ninety seven Star playing tournaments and my aggression was something that people couldn't really deal with back then usually before when you get three bet. It was the nuts. Everybody they had when you when you three by somebody.