The Mechanics of Poker Podcast

Garrett Adelstein joins Mechanics of Poker to break down the mindset, risk tolerance, and obsession that helped him become one of live poker’s biggest winners. He reflects on going broke at 22, rebuilding with stricter guardrails, the edges that still matter in high-stakes live poker, and how perfectionism can be both a superpower and a liability. Garrett also opens up about the fallout from the infamous J4 hand and why, at the highest level, being technically good at poker is simply not enough.

Agustín went from 5NL to playing 40K NL - the biggest online cash games in the world - in six years. In this episode he breaks down how he game-selects, how he manages risk and bankroll on the way up, why he never let a downswing spiral, and the daily habits that built one of the fastest, steadiest rises we've covered on this podcast.

He Reached Financial Freedom And His Life Felt Over | Dirk "VeniVidi" Gerritse | EP73 Dirk "VeniVidi" Gerritse reached financial freedom at the end of 2022. No alarm. In bed until 11. No reason to get up. The months that followed were some of the unhappiest of his life. In this episode, Dirk breaks down what actually happens when the goal is reached, why poker identity becomes a liability when you step away, and how the EV mindset traps players long after the bankroll stops needing it. We also cover the elite PLO group he built his career with, how being cut out after retirement reignited his fire, the million dollar challenge, and the 2.7 million year that followed.

In Episode 72, our guest Felipe "Lipe Piv" Boianovsky talks about how he used GTO as a psychological defense for years, defaulting to solver-approved lines not to optimize play but to protect himself from judgment whenever exploits went wrong. What looks like discipline can be a performance leak. Felipe walks through how insecurity shows up in high-pressure spots, how working with performance coaches and Eastern philosophy gradually shifted his relationship with external approval, and why trusting body intelligence is not mysticism but the output of years of subconscious pattern recognition at the table. The conversation covers the mental mechanics of downswings, including the victimization cycle that makes bad runs worse, how to distinguish the raw emotion from the thinking that amplifies it, and what it means to play your real game when the pressure is on. Felipe also discusses his transition from cash games to MTTs, the specific ICM gaps that hurt cash players in tournament final tables, how he selects live stops by EV calculation, and preparation routines for long online sessions. The honest tension running through all of it: are you using theory to get better, or are you using it to feel safe?

In Episode 71 of the Mechanics of Poker Podcast, we sit down with Yoshi "Play4livin" Paco Nagaki to break down the part of high-stakes poker nobody warns you about, the moment the body sends the bill.Most players think the climb is the hard part. Yoshi disagrees. He believes the real test starts after you get there, when chronic stress, lost sleep, and a body that's quit on you force you to choose between grinding harder or actually living.