You may not know much about the poker podcasts you don’t listen to. Nearly all published guidance to the market is click-bait, and that’s being kind. As for user searches, Google’s and Spotify’s overwhelmed algorithms promote long-dead pods and one-off efforts while burying some of the best content. Maybe that’s okay, though, because if you…
Picture late 2019. Britain was finally Brexiting, Trump was somehow still presidenting, and general protests for a more liberal, freer society were happening all over the world- remember Hong Kong? Remember life before mask and vaccine discourse? That’s when I last talked with Gerard S., aspiring pro and studied player who had worked with a…
I have retraced my steps in the windstorm. Sand and garbage blow down through the funnel of the Strip from its miserable northern mouth. The palms tremble and kick like the underskirts of its old chorus girls. Ugly sixteenth notes pip from wind on metal; invisible drums scratch rustle and thunder. Everyone struggling around me…
The poker dream, they call it, although no one is quite sure what they mean by “dream” anymore. Contests of intelligence for prizes? An insecure and unsteady wage? Retirement at twenty-nine? Endless scams and bullshit personalities? An easy way to make a hard living? What does it mean to you? For me it was about…
Swirling beneath the never explicit politics of the poker scheme is the treatment of so-called “recreational” player. A lot of condescending, hypocritical stuff is said every day, on every platform, by every talking head about this source of all poker income. Occasionally, however, that tension is resolved when one decides to stop donating and start…
A Tourney Boy tended to his Stack in a grubby tournament not far from his village. Soon he found life in the tourney very dull. All he could do to amuse himself was chat with his Tourney Bros or play on his phone. One day as he sat watching his Stack and the tournament, and…
Few are able to get themselves banned from social media sites like Abe Limon, guru of west coast live poker and advantage gambling. Our last pod with Abe was a little rough on the ears, so we make up for it this time with good conversation ranging from his online arguments, why the WSOP is…
I sometimes drive home with the Lounge Lizard, just off his shift at Bazaar. Maybe we’ll find one last drink in dark west Vegas or need to hit a convenience store for the vaporizer cartridge (we addicts never think ahead), but more often stop for fast food at a particular joint on Rainbow. The Lizard…
Despite all the threats over the years – poker players really are tame at heart, settling things like ladies over a coffee table – there was only one time someone was actually brazen enough to brandish a firearm inside the Endboss. It was – no, it wasn’t Ricardo – it was Breezy John who had…