The Poker Zoo Podcast: Recent Episodes
Chris M. aka Persuadeo & Dean Martin
T.S. Eliot famously stated that “there is no method but intelligence” when asked about his craft. Poker is like this, too, so when a savvy player doesn’t make it work, the postmortem is always interesting.
Nate Serisky, the “new pro” DGAF dubbed “Tom Brady Jr.” in one of his session reviews, stopped playing poker at the end of 2024. A staked and studied mid-stakes reg, he was not who you wanted to see at your Wynn table. Nate liked taking his time and took every hand, it seemed to me, very seriously. Yet the story behind the story is always complicated. Beyond appearances, Nate was in fact struggling to establish a satisfying win-rate. We get into it on today’s Poker Zoo.
(I say today’s Zoo like I’ve been just pumping out podcasts.)
I respect the people around Nate and am sure he had all the help he could ask for; I met Nate, after all, through Chris Konvalinka and Christian Holden, each talented players with some role in the story, no doubt. Yet I wonder about Nate’s references to study and so does he, referring to theory and what was best for the live games. Nate sounds like he could have been falling into the trap of thinking outputs are theory. We can become consumed by the microfibers of equilibrium data when more basic and flexible ideas are what we need for the real and very different equilibria around us.
A major theme of this blog for the past year has been variance and the misinterpretation of it. Swings in poker are difficult to accept and might not even mean what we think they mean. In our first podcast, Nate spoke of taking a lot of time off to recover from rough outings. Looking back, he questions this. “More volume,” he says, was surely one of the answers. Maybe so. How to persist is one of the hardest tasks to master in poker and seems like a big part of what happened here. Overprep is a dangerous thing when the joy of the game lies in confronting the challenge simply and at ease.
Still, signs point to Nate returning to poker. He sounds like someone who is processing an experience, not leaving it behind. We cannot know the future until we know what we want. When he calls his current gig as a slot stalker a “profession,” we know he is not taking himself too seriously, given it is not a profession. We all go through periods of just needing income. Of course, the transition could simply be to his current preoccupation, music. That’s a glorious way to live, of course, but a way with just as many or more demands.
In any case, I hope you enjoy this bookend podcast. So many are going through struggles and changes; really, all of us.
The post PZ103: Persistence, Real and Fake, with Nate Serisky appeared first on Out of Position.
Jason Su, mental game and performance coach for an increasing number of poker players, returns to the Zoo. While poker is a game (not “just” a game), there is something a touch more serious in this visit. Why is this? Perhaps because the money involved in poker is increasingly scarce and so every edge has become important.
Actually, it’s worse than that. People are leaving the online scene and rolling the dice in live MTTs or private cash games at a new clip. Nick Howard has gone AWOL and become a concierge for desperate poker nerds. Scamming and scammers have never had it better.
So, do you need a mental game upgrade to deal with it all? Maybe.
My first impression of The Joy of Poker is that this is a book about the ego, not in the pop psychology sense, but in the Freudian sense. The ego mitigates the unconscious and reality. The ego is, as Jason would say, present. This mental awareness of ourselves is not only what makes us conscious but helps us deal with all the pressures of our irrational desires and what society tells us. Freudian or not, Jason puts great stock in being in touch with reality and ordering our response to it. Credit to him, you can hear his measuredness, his lack of hysteria, on our podcasts. Ok, so what?
One big assertion he makes is that mental game has made no progress since some undefined point. This seems doubtful to me, but in conversation, Jason seems convinced enough. Still, everyone now has a little meditation app or something now. Everyone knows to breathe. Go crazy, you oxygen addicts.
While I don’t get into on the podcast, as I expect the reader and other pods to handle certain details, Jason provides a methodology to handle the stress of the game. Read the chapter Clear the Path to get down to business.
Instead, I focus in the interview on an introduction to his ideas and on the culminating chapter, Master of Luck which he referred to in an oblique tweet several months ago. Can you make your own luck, really? At first, he seems to mean something else, and that the argument is more semantic in nature: you don’t make luck, but you can experience it. Fair. Then, I stumble onto something more important: a human approach to embracing variance, which has always been the key to the seemingly impossible goal of playing with a sense of peace.
After reading the book I realized the answer to Jason’s supposition that no progress has been made in the mental game department. It’s a slippery area of the game which has been promulgated through so many empty words, true, but progress has indeed been made and Jason is making some of it. Jason means that the way out of pain is not around but through, both in poker and in life. Words are not enough for the human emotional experience; they are signifiers but not actions. Jason wants you to take a sequence of action steps, which you can read about in the book. So, while the field’s methodologies have been dodgy overall, Jason has refined the answers, both in print and in practice.
Processes that allow us a modicum of acceptance are the progress we’ve made, however imperfect they are. We must fully embrace the swings of the game and thus the feelings associated with them, just as we already know we must max out the corresponding and primary challenge of the game, the challenge of poker strategy.
In other words, to interpret Jason correctly is not to merely hear him say, “you must be willing to win big.” No, you also have to be willing to lose. Perhaps he doesn’t say this enough, given that “willingness to win” always sounds paradoxical. And so this is where emotional availability – presence – meets up with Mason’s critique through knowledge alone – and explains Chewy’s curious quote, for that matter. We thus demonstrate a human way forward and it is for those primarily with the proper skills already. Mental game is for those who need it, and those who need it already know how to win.
How to do it is the problem. Tendler’s “inchworm” is here, Mason’s focus on the strategy as answer is here, and the contributions of many other thinkers are in here as well, however hidden. The Joy of Poker presents a strong case for, and argument about, mental game.
Have a listen and find out. You can find Jason on Twitter or here at his webpage.
The post PZ102: Jason Su Wants to Unmisreg You appeared first on Out of Position.
It’s early in the back nine for the Poker Zoo podcast, so it’s time to focus on what we want to accomplish. I have a fitting guest today in Sara O’Connor, a mid-Atlantic player and writer who has gathered some attention through her book, A New Queen’s Guide to Poker, and through some social media expertise. Sara has a lot of drive.
I was introduced to Sara through my friend Jason when he bit off a little more than he could chew in the course of his regular Twitter trolling. While Sara and I discuss many things about her life in poker, her first book is or was the original focus of the interview. I think she has done a great job in acclimating the novice to specifically live casino poker. Explicatory passages such as this could do a lot for the unfamiliar:
The game is played with a dealer in the center of the table and
two to ten players. Seat numbers start from the dealer’s left at seat
one and usually end at eight or nine but may go all the way up to
ten. Currently, my favorite seat is seat five, but never become too
attached to one seat. You never know which seat you’ll have to start
playing at, and attachments can lead to feelings of jinxes which
must be avoided. That said, you can ask for a seat change button if
you’re horribly uncomfortable and playing a cash game. With a
tournament, you’re stuck with the seat you’ve been given. We’ll talk
about the nitty gritty details of each of these table positions later.
This is far more practical than many, drier introductory texts. Sara conveys much of the real game and the concerns of its new participants. That’s the “good for poker” stuff everyone yammers on, right there.
When it comes to the strategy discussion in New Queen’s, my response is a little more complex. I think of Dan Savage’s “campground” rule, where he posited that in certain relationships, you must leave your partner better off than you found them. In essence, much of my coaching practice lays in correcting concepts and their misapplication. Does A New Queen’s Guide to Poker and other such novice guides to strategy help or harm the player in the long run? Does she follow the campground rule?
I tend to think the answer is that there is little harm here in the end, and that Sara answered my question during the podcast well enough. Things are going to be wrong, inevitably and everywhere; you’ll recover from your middle school texts no matter how careful they are in addling your brain. The so-called “ladder of learning” is not just straight up and up – the process of learning and relearning also matters. That’s real enough and leaves the writer some reign to describe things that need to be introduced even if those things will need to be corrected later. And of course, I like teaching poker and its theory! Bring on your confusions.
Really, though, I want to skip all that and focus in on what I liked hearing about at the end of the pod: Sara’s coming poker fiction. Ideas start with books and stories, and usually only then proceed to reach popular culture and its bigger, more splashy mediums where huge profits and big picture trends develop. The current debate over poker media is reductive and misguided, as I have written, in both how influence works and what makes it work.
So, if Sara is going to give us some “smut,” it’s good news because she will be generating “content” that really matters to real people with real desires, rather than doing what the poker world flagellates itself to do every few years: weakly manipulate culture with “PR” no one wants. The writer or communicator is the usual if hidden origin point of cultural products and movements because the word is the basic unit of shareable thought.
You can contact Sara on X or at her website.
Coming next, popular mental game and performance coach Jason Su returns to the Zoo with a new book – The Joy of Poker.
The post PZ101: Sara O’Connor Does Things appeared first on Out of Position.
For our milestone episode, I talk with old friend Steve “ChipXtractor” Catterson. I met Steve through the defunct Red Chip Poker forum, and we have been more or less in touch since.
Steve and I go over some stories, but it seems to me that the present in this case is more interesting than the past. Steve is working on his game and that means becoming more interested in the game. Teaching, in turn, makes me more interested in the game. The reason for all this is that when we see what is possible or what we have been blind to, the world regains its color. I’m obviously not just talking poker here. The way to overcome loss is to see what still lives and what you have been missing from the bigger picture.
Less seriously, it’s fun to hear hand histories from South Point, which can be a fun, popular local’s place. Soon Steve will be moving up from the cheap seats and will get involved with the notorious shit regs of the “Jewel.” Good luck with that.
Here’s the hand discussed:
The theme of this podcast is sociability. From Steve’s angle, poker is a part of one’s real, physical, meaningful life. Otherwise hard-tack players need to remember that. I regret my many rudenesses at the table and have been trying to make up for them for some time. For those currently embracing misery and its spread to others, I suggest you rethink your approach. You don’t have to embarrass that old guy who doesn’t want to show his cards. You don’t have to fight over who straddled when. You don’t have to wander the room looking for exact right game to worsen.
Thanks to Dean for all his work on the pod. Thanks to Porter, Julie, Burge and anyone else who put in some editing time. Congratulations us.
If you want to join Steve in relearning the game, use the coaching link or email me.
Have a great week,
Chris
The post PZ100: Poker as Social Good, with ChipXtractor appeared first on Out of Position.
As we roll into 2025 it’s well worth checking in with Zoo member Jason Burge, aka Jambasket. He’s a tough online winner in the active Michigan online games but is also a hidden superhero on Twitter (I’m not calling it X, c’mon), where he trolls the hell out of poker’s puffed-up personalities and various engagement beggars.
Students in the Zoo have a lot of questions about how to Jambasket, so we go through them all. Should be valuable for the aspiring: how do you make a living in your underwear these days?
We also talk poker culture. One thing that’s important this month is the Global Poker Awards and their coming award show on February 22. Anyone (who is fair) can see that Eric Danis and company do a pretty damn good job overall. I have no complaints and enjoy helping out by voting. Because the awards are really the promotional arm of a poker business rather than some non-aligned committee, it’s easy but incorrect to get upset when some corner of the industry isn’t included or perhaps is passed over.
One of those debatable corners is the podcast scene, where the usual suspects keep shuffling in and out of the finalist nominations. Those selected are worthy candidates who serve the needs of the poker industry. Yet one of the few podcasts of any real lasting worth, Sessions, isn’t likely to ever make it out of the first round, never mind win the award itself. Jason and I talk lightly about this problem for a bit.
After seven seasons of diary-meets-storytelling, Billy is still in a tough spot, but he continues to stretch out a grand story arc. His is not really a podcast in the sense GPI voters mean, but a kind of oral history, one which represents an entire vein of the culture. It’s hard to compare Sessions to a half-hour interviewing the latest tournament donkstar, in other words.
Jason and I also go over the recent Faraz Jaka queen-nine of diamonds hand, tournaments in general, and a few other fun things as well.
Jason has made several appearances on the Zoo, here’s another one to check out.
He also has a series of amusing trip reports documenting his days in Las Vegas, check them out through searching my website. Here’s one.
Hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.
Thanks,
Chris
The post PZ99: Jambasket FAQs, GPIs, MTTs, & LOLs appeared first on Out of Position.
The five things you need to do to win in 2025. The roadmap to poker success in 2024. Three tips for crushing poker in 2023.
They do it all day, every month, every year, but what if we turn them on their head and listen carefully:
You’re not winning 20 bbs/hr at your live game because you didn’t listen to us. You’re not trading pots with NL500 regs because you didn’t take our program. You’re not heads up because of our ICM class that you skipped.
Sirens, our poker masters, yet sirens who compete heavily for our sailors. The proliferation of information and poker knowledge has never been greater, and so the big poker educators say with more and more confidence and more and more fear, we have the way to win. A few authors pitch in, too: look at this fresh batch of Poker for Dummies.
I’m sure they all bring some value. Yet the exact same people say, out of the other side of their mouth, that only a select few actually win. In other words, come to be vetted and culled. Is this how coaching should work?
If all these poker educators are doing their advertised job, we should, by 2025, be seeing the Great Evening of Poker, where win rates plummet and loss rates improve, but the evidence is not clear. Instead, the migration to tournaments may be the ultimate expression of the Evening and its tighter margins, where more and more money is agreed to be flushed out of the player pool and into the supportive but parasitical industry. Hey, here’s a mystery bounty, dummy! Come over here!
My win rate, for instance, is the same now as it was then; the Evening of Poker is not affecting me in some respects. In fact, certain faces never seem to leave, while newbies come and go like the tide. Moreover, the primary public-facing success of the poker industry, the story of the tournament luckbox semi-genius, continues its tale of an unstated minimal return floated by an increasing volume of staking cattle-calls. Further, while the channels do change, the themes do not: just as we once loved Andrew Neeme’s tour of how soft 5/10 Vegas was, now Marc Goone fascinates us by showing deep 5/5 games which seem to be as full of fish as the Hudson was in 1609.
So how do we resolve the essential contradiction of the poker educators, who break the rule of good business and prefer to promise more than they can deliver? After all, the best students are those already destined to win, but they compose a tiny fraction of the student pool.
What about the try-hards, don’t they count? More importantly, what if that try hard is you?
Today our guest is James Tichenor. He’s played poker over a long time period. He’s getting there, but it is a struggle many of us can identify with. Almost everything he was doing when we started working together, I considered backwards – yet he didn’t just make it all up on his own. No, he came from all the usual schools and classes and coaches and poker celebrities.
Didn’t the tips work? Did he not read the menu? Are we supposed to blame him or them? Is everything that simple? What happened and what’s next?
Today, we find out.
The post PZ98: Behind the Facade of Poker Education appeared first on Out of Position.
We are happy to close our best year of interviews with Poker Zoo stalwart Greg Porter. We not only cover his swingy year in the games but address the many interesting things that happened in 2024 poker culture.
First, though, remind me what they were again?
One thing that does actually matter to a serious player who needs to produce is dealing with the increasingly gatekept public/private games. Greg tells us about his experience managing expectations and keeping the games alive. That also brings up the inevitable novelty games that help sustain the action, such as the notorious Stand-up, aka Nit Game. (And look at that friendly guy in the podcast photo – don’t you want him in your game?)
For those dealing with the stress of performance, Greg talks about hiring Jason Su for mental game coaching. Here’s our interview with Jason that I mention, and here is that essay on mental game from way back.
Two notes on the close of the podcast. While we joke around about some of the foolish “women in poker” discussions that happen among the thinkfluencer types, it’s worth underscoring that there is no inherent reason for women to play worse (or better) than the men do. There are always, however, personal issues for both men and women and these are far bigger hurdles than immutable characteristics. To that question, Greg provides some classic, unheeded, and excellent advice on how to get to his level – it’s the theory, stupid.
(If you need a more in-depth discussion on why there are so many bad takes on the woman in poker subject and why it is women are slow to take up the game as their hobby, I wrote heavily about it here.)
Second, I meant the question of what is the good poker book or good poker writing of 2024 rather literally. I’m out of touch on this subject after a year of closely following politics instead of poker. Other than yet another solid Dara O’Kearney intro to strategy text, is there something great I should check out before the GPI Awards process starts? Let me know.
Here’s last year’s interview with Greg if you want to hear more from him.
Thanks for listening and putting up with me. Special thanks to Dean for all his work and to SDJen for the recording space and her general helpfulness in all Poker Zoo matters. Have a great 2025, readers and listeners.
Chris
The post PZ97: Relax, Greg Porter is Not a Poker Pro appeared first on Out of Position.
Merry Christmas from the Poker Zoo! To celebrate, we bring on (depending on your point of view) gadfly or pest Norman Chad. Mr. Chad is indisputably one of the true co-pilots of poker commentary and the boom itself. There are many myths that surround the poker boom, such as it being triggered by the 2003 world series champ, but we’re not going into that today, because Norm is still alive and kicking and screaming and yelling at the clouds, here in post-Covid, dumpster-fire America.
One problem he’s having is that the technology of the social media age allows the audience to yell back. Fortunately, Norman has broad shoulders, or at least a funny suit jacket, and is weathering Elon’s version of twitter and the 2021-24 reaction to the censorious centrist politics of the past decades fairly well. Norm, ever the grumpy contrarian, takes up the cause for institutional standards on a daily basis on X, but also on his revamped show, Gambling Mad with Norman Chad.
Gambling Mad is being promoted on YouTube under the preferred two-pronged strategy, leading with a long video and following up with clipped-out “shorts.” For the moment, both are unloved and underappreciated by humans and algorithms alike, but this is a favorite to change; even as this is being written, one of the shorts I mention in the podcast seems to have become a hit on the TikTok platform. Norm has little quit in him and everyone can eventually find their correct YouTube pitch. As I delved into Wolfgang’s extraordinary success, the short form is about precision – every nanomoment truly counts for the “shorts” viewer. The spoiled-for-choice make instantaneous decisions on tone and expectation – literally within seconds – and so far, Norm needs a little more time to fire up his best rant.
For this reason, the full show is Norm at his best. We talk about its origins today, including the interesting set he films on.
Also, for everyone who does not enjoy Norm or who flames him on Twitter, he invites you to go here, the “worst restaurant in Las Vegas.” However, it might just be that no one ever taught Norm how to handle the tableside music: you don’t pay for the accordionist, you pay for accordionist to go away.
Hope you enjoy our show. Dean and I are talking about how we might continue and improve the Zoo. Help us by letting one of us know what you’d like to hear and who you’d like to hear from.
Best wishes,
Chris
The post PZ96: Cloud Yells Back at Norman Chad appeared first on Out of Position.
This year we have focused on very broad issues in poker, both in poker theory and in its statistics, but today we are going to get very specific. Scoop! is a series of detailed books focused on one game in two variants: PLO8 and Big O. Its author, Greg Vail, makes a living playing and teaching these games alone.
In Hold’em, there are often cards on the board that are considered to be blanks or bricks that should not help anyone’s hand. This is almost never the case in High Low. Since there are so many combinations of hands in play, most cards on the board are going to help or connect with something or someone. Therefore, we must consider how the “best” hand can fare against the entire deck and the entire run out. Once this is done, the “best” hand is the hand with the highest equity. Most of the time, this is not the hand that a Hold’em mind would consider to be “ahead” right now.
Vail, Greg. Scoop!: Big O and PLO8: Winning High Low Concepts for the Hold’em Mind (p. 13).
For whatever reason, splitting the pot into two simply blows away many poker players. While I have been preparing a modest class for Double Board Bomb Pots in particular, the Scoop! series by Greg, soon to be completed with volume four, is the seminal contemporary text for big bet omaha games and is emphatically built around split pot concepts.
Play for the scoop. We wouldn’t draw to chop in Hold’em, so why would we in split pot games? We will gain most of our profit by exploiting players who do exactly that. We’ve all seen someone River an inferior Flush in Hold’em, pay off a large bet to the nut Flush, and say, “I hate it when I was drawing dead and got there.” That happens all the time in split pot games. Do not be that guy.
It is a conceptual series but also a detailed one.
Breakdowns like this, of the entire combo, help clarify what you are looking for in a split pot hand.
A few more links:
Here’s the software Greg mentioned.
Greg can be found at doublesuited.com.
Here’s a Zoo episode where I argue with Limon about a split pot double board spot. What would Greg have to say about it?
Basically, this is a great series, I don’t have a lot to add here. You should just buy and read the books if you are going to play Big O and PLO8.
Enjoy the interview!
Dean at work.As for sourdough, I use allrecipes.com for everything these days. Maybe Dean will write out his own recipe and post it here.
The post PZ95: Greg Vail, Split Pot Expert appeared first on Out of Position.
The straddle is a third blind added to the traditional two blind structure of hold’em and other related games. It’s not always a neutral proposition. The extra blind can help stimulate action or inhibit it, depending on the players and stack sizes. More controversially, the straddle often gets put into play with a certain amount of social pressure. For this reason, in the games I host, I allow unlimited straddling but never allow it to become mandatory – because there is always That Guy who doesn’t want to straddle, and I don’t think a good host forces people to do things.
Our guest today Brent Jenkins is that guy who is tired of what he calls “stakes terrorists” prodding him into putting on the straddle. Not a big deal you say? Just say no to straddles, Nancy reminds you – you have the option. Well, as we all know, it’s not that simple. Pro-straddlers can be pushy and unpleasant. There is a social stigma that if you are against the straddle, you are somehow against a “good game.” Objecting to the straddle becomes a form of poor behavior – it is stigmatized.
Brent doesn’t think it should be like this and has written what he titles The Anti-Straddle Manifesto. For the TLDR crowd it’s going to be a heavy lift, but I can assure you it is fairly straightforward and marshals many good arguments for his case. In the introduction he even lists the headers for the points he’s going to make, at pains to be clear.
To really understand his argument, we have to separate the social pressure aspect and the straddle itself. Brent makes arguments against both, but the former is what is most important to him. Poker is constantly concerned with “what is good for the game” and he makes a fairly reasonable case that “stakes terrorists” are not acting in its best interests.
The straddle itself, on the other hand, is going to be a less clear subject. Most players who love it confuse the correlation of action they bring with the incentive the straddle adds to the game, and therefore are under the delusion that they are the “good guys” here, when it is really much more of a grey area. Straddles halve the effective stacks and limit actions, while providing third blind complexity. Tradeoffs.
The notoriously bitchy, micro-edge seeking culture of the 5/10 scene at Wynn and other casinos has led to that leading room now removing the straddle from the game in favor of a big blind ante. Brent is obviously pleased by this contiguous development. We’ll want to watch and see how it all plays out. Brent argues the lack of straddles will stimulate players to play at their appropriate stakes size, and anecdotally already reports some of that happening. Conversely, I’ve heard negative rumors as well.
In any case, whether you are a die-hard straddler or one of Brent’s acolytes, hopefully today’s podcast makes you think about this hidden big deal within cash game culture. Enjoy the pod.
N.B. Dean is occupied, my apologies for the stripped down podcast and any balance issues.
The post PZ94: Brent Jenkins is That Guy appeared first on Out of Position.
One of the common twists of fate in poker is the change in personal relationships on account of strategy and results. At one point now nearly forgotten, the entrance of Alvin Lau into the Red Chip Poker forum caused a whole chain of events to unfold.
One end result was the rise of Alvin’s first poker teaching and programming, Overnight Monster, as ambitious RCP and other players flocked to his initial offerings. This established Alvin as a strong coaching prospect for low stakes online players. The forum feuding and questions of etiquette in turn led me to become more independent, as I could not deny Alvin’s superior strategies and reasoning in the forums. This interaction later became a series of interviews with Alvin which would become the most popular of the Poker Zoo’s first episodes, as we both agreed and sparred over a whole series of subjects and ideas, from Pluribus to race identity.
Today Alvin returns after several years in the Texas poker scene. It’s been a minute for sure, and he’s changed quite a bit: our far-reaching conversation reflects both personal and professional changes. As a coach who has a very straightforwardly successful and straightforward program, he has become popular with those who are absolutely committed to moving up fast online and live. While coaches and players do grumble about their competition behind the scenes, Alvin belongs in a special tier of slightly less-known experts you can count on probably better than anyone in poker yet are still accessible, a unique tier that includes player/coaches like Upswing’s Gary Blackwood, Peter Clarke of Carrot Poker, and now Marc Goone of Hungry Horse.
While Alvin had earned a reputation as a difficult person to deal with, relationships work both ways; I was not persuaded his apparent harshness was always unwarranted. Further, his many success stories bely the trouble he’s run into – even with students from my own community. He has also had an obviously huge impact on the vlogger with the highest number of subscribers ever – Wolfgang.
We talk extensively about Alvin’s work with Wolfgang today. Being the coach of a near-celebrity poker player means the spotlight is on the student. Alvin, however, is more than ever okay with that, even writing about it on his Youtube page.
Yet that’s not the real surprise today, because Alvin discusses a likely reason he has sometimes struggled in the coaching relationship, despite his passion for it: autism.
Does this self-diagnosis resolve everything? Alvin, a fierce solver and simplification advocate at the time, was hard on RCP and on a semi-related book project. Under the weight of Alvin’s public fire, the project collapsed, and the forum was retracted as RCP reorganized itself to catch up with the times. Was Alvin unnecessarily cruel or was he just stating the facts, an inevitable agent of the marketplace of ideas?
Through the lens of his diagnosis, it was neither. Instead, it was the manifestation of indifference or unawareness of social behaviors that is often the outcome of his condition. I’m not a fan of the medicalization of personality issues that seems to plague contemporary society and especially parents – why can’t he just have these traits without a diagnosis – but it struck me during our talk that if a diagnosis of a trait can bring understanding and peace to a person, and even change their behavior for the betterment of all, who am I to question the label or the process?
Our talk goes quite a bit beyond this and Wolfgang, as we get the real deal on the state of Texas NL, the real reason not every great poker mind plays high stakes, and even some strong live poker tell stuff.
I hope you enjoy Alvin’s return.
A few links:
Alvin mentioned Wolfgang’s ownership stake in Home – The Fort Card Room
Alvin on the Poker Zoo.
The post PZ93: Alvin Behind the Scenes appeared first on Out of Position.
The Poker Zoo continues its latest revival with an interview on a key poker subject: the quantification of winning and losing in games of chance. Going to play a session of poker is gambling, guest Mason Malmuth asserts unambiguously, but the question becomes more interesting and complex over the horizon of time. In fact, the answer now can change – or may not, depending on your expectation.
A new edition of his Gambling Theory and Other Topics covers this and all kinds of other poker statistics concepts. It seems like a forgotten essential text because the questions and the math don’t change, nor has the community really added much to Mason’s work that started back in the 1980’s.
Gambling Theory and Other Topicshas been very helpful in creating my current article series on playing live one three. The interplay of expectation and standard deviation was not previously clear to me before, especially as forum posters continuously toss around arbitrary sample size requirements and myths about “variance.”
The final section of the book is unexpected, however, being a long series of short reviews on poker and gambling books. As I went through some of the reviews, I realized how valuable this summary is, should anyone want to get a picture of the history of poker strategy. That said, there are two key books (and maybe others) that are not in the reviews, unless I’m mistaken. The first is Easy Game by Andrew Seidman, probably the finest of all poker general strategy books in overall quality and influence. It’s somewhat dated now because of the precision of today’s tools, but Seidman’s thinking process and his teaching knack remains unmatched. Second, Let There Be Range by Tri Nguyen and Cole South similarly shared high stakes high ideas in the transformative years of modern no-limit. This was a breakthrough read for many.
Thanks to Poker Zoo member Kent D. for reading the book with me and preparing questions. Thanks also, of course and as usual, to Dean for putting our podcast together. Now go find some peppers!
The post PZ92: Malmuth on Gambling appeared first on Out of Position.
Poker pro and instructor Marc Goone has created a bit of a stir in saying he can beat the low stakes, specifically his local 5/5 game, for at least $100 an hour. Interestingly, it’s been done and is being done – the shock is not actually the number but how few do it or challenge themselves to get there.
On today’s Poker Zoo I get the details on the challenge (he’s already well into it) and find out why he thinks he can take the lead in the under-appreciated, temporal excellence of the modest and modest-stakes crusher. After all, if you are good – like Marc is – you don’t hang around here, right?
We also go over Marc’s coaching and staking program, Hungry Horse. He’s not the only one out there providing this exact kind of poker education. More and more of your opponents in the low to mid stakes are part of programs or study groups or professionals. That’s the inevitable effect of time, inflation, and shrinking cash game liquidity. Players move down or laterally, looking to find the existing soft games. Hungry Horse is just that, hungry, and is gathering and focusing many names you know on grabbing more dollars. Marc’s recent tweet about content creators being fish probably hit all too close to some client homes.
Part of Hungry Horse’s marketing is Marc’s appeal to younger players. With his tattoos, mustache and opinionated yet mildly ironic attitude, Marc presents the slimmer, more contemporary face of live poker, a scene which is often otherwise filled with alternating slobs, fitness lifestyle freaks, untrustable social media baiters, and withdrawn or tempestuous shitregs. Hungry Horse is not aimed at the average the aging boomer or gen-x player who no longer studies and still identifies with a fat accountant’s inexplicable tournament run, but at those who still want or need a growing future in poker.
Of course, much of the appeal, as with everything, is in the presentation. Surrounding some intriguing tactics in Hungry Horse’s free Youtube videos are all the classic hits of strategy adjustment: nihil novem sub sole.
A few extra notes: it’s worth listening to Charlie Wilmoth’s six month fall from grace and his subsequent time at the $5 games, in a series of podcasts focused on a major, attitude-changing downswing. Moreover, Charlie coaches for Hungry Horse, if I am not mistaken.
My latest series on a similar challenge contains some data and statistical stuff that might be of use. Further, a Zoo podcast with Mason Malmuth on those ideas is done and is being produced.
Here’s the Aero vlogger I mention who is having big success in my player pool. His style doesn’t look as sustainable as Marc’s but on the other hand, demonstrates the money available and is an argument in Marc’s favor for succeeding in the challenge.
Lastly, check out Limon’s interview with Mike Basich, another known crusher of the California five-dollar games, and how he does it. It’s interesting to listen to how little things change, despite solvers and data and all the stuff with which we scare ourselves.
The post PZ91: The Marc Goone Challenge appeared first on Out of Position.
Legendary poker theorist and writer David Sklansky joins us on the Zoo. We discuss Twoplustwo Publishing’s new book, Small Stakes Hold’em: Help Them Give You Their Money, an already controversial strategy work by David and his business partner Mason Malmuth.
Freshly published in January 2024, the new book focuses on adaptive play in the softest small-stakes games and against the absolutely worst players. “When I started to play these games,” David writes in the book’s introduction, “which are the large majority of poker games spread today, it was shocking at how badly many of the players played, and this included many opponents who were regulars in these games.
A book wasn’t far off from there, especially as Mason was already in the Vegas low-stakes scene and was seeing many of the same things; here’s his PZ interview. Early versions attracted attention on Twoplustwo thanks to some provocatively strange hands that were unsurprisingly misinterpreted; even Bart Hanson, king of live poker training, when correcting a forum statement about wide ranges, felt further compelled to drop some literalist outrage as well as scold Mason over a nitty drawing recommendation. On one hand, everything is fair game, and the examples were not perfectly representative, as David explains in our podcast. On the other, a little unfair given how many ideas Bart (and all of us) has cribbed from the old theorists – think of all those endless podcasts on set mining, implied odds, and effectively value betting that derive straight from Sklansky and Seidman. Ideas, especially in books, are best understood as questions to be discussed. Instead, we have social media, whose arc is short and bends toward conflict.
It definitely didn’t go past me that many of the experienced posters in the book’s forum thread didn’t seem to understand certain poker fundamental ideas. One recurrently loud poster kept challenging Sklansky on the expected value of a hand multiway, not understanding where EV comes from or how the game might differ from the “allowed” calls in a solver abstraction. Now what was interesting was that this player is a studied one, a student of the solves and the population data. He probably is quite the online threat. Yet when his conversation extended itself to why we open and to what size, he revealed only further misconceptions. The urge to assume prolific poker authors don’t have some slight idea about what they are doing is odd to say the least, and the ability of players to play in certain environments without knowing what is going on underneath is a fascinating surety.
These short interactions demonstrate an interesting leak in today’s poker education culture: we love the model and its outputs, while we are quickly losing track of the theory. The model is not theory; we improve theory from the model’s outputs, but the model is itself mute and is only possible because of theory. Consider how often smart players say to study the big picture, not every detail; what do you think that is really all about? Yet aspiring players immediately run home to check their lines against GTOW, the seductive application which has become as much of a soothing AI doll for regs as it is a strategic tool. Further, consider how often someone in your Discord starts a foolish statement with “in theory we should,” then goes on to refer to some obscure spot in a solve output. No, theory explains the data and is enhanced by the data; we can’t even get out of first gear when we talk so rashly and incorrectly about first things.
Small Stakes Hold’em: Help Them Give You Their Money is a book of theory and the attendant primitive math of proofs and samples and suggestions. It is often exploitative and so the examples can look ugly- yet how else would such a word and action perform? The elegant totality of GTO solutions is not replicated here. However, that doesn’t mean theory is not at work in every single spot. In fact, many of the hands are simply unmodeled spots that the reader is not used to seeing. At one point David gets impatient with me as I bridge the gap between his exploit and generally good play. When he the general speaks of GTO, he’s more focused on the big picture of what it is and what are its tell-tale effects; I’m the tired grinder and poker coach who needs to unite disparities into clear directives for myself and the platoon.
I find this book to be enjoyable, but you will need an open mind to have that experience. There is a great deal of poker irony in reading about doing some stuff exactly the way many of us learned to avoid; pot-builder anyone? Limp-fold sound good to you? I don’t want to do everything it says, even with bad players as the target, but in taking the ideas on, I get a better understanding of why. If you, on the other hand, are like the posters in the thread, if you need examples of absolutely replicable plays, as the posters or Bart want, you may not like it so much. There is a lot to read; its contradictions must be reconciled; its arithmetic must be tested.
Of course, there it is, another big picture: poker books are not out of fashion because you can’t learn from them, they are out of fashion because they are not content. Content has a play button. Content is the waking dream on tap. We are in the prime era of content because we are pinnacle consumers.
Books, on the other hand, perform more awkwardly than content. Books demand your full attention and worse, they unfairly demand that you wake up, all while their requisite quiet and solitude also put you to sleep. Books are difficult because they are storehouses of ideas, even storing wrong ideas that must still be dealt with. A book sits in front of you like a dusty ammunition box, one loaded with danger and pain to your mind. You let your books sit there, you let that ammo go unspent, because there are other buttons more safely pushed.
Just put on a poker vid or vlog, my dear shitreg, you deserve a nice, long break, don’t you? Yes, you’re just running bad, that’s it.
Our book today is merely a poker one, but the principle remains. We’re a silly industry and we think about silly things, but we’re still a part of a greater culture and its greater trends. I spent some of today in minor horror at the suggestions of our poker betters that they would simply back-channel solve the inconveniences of our annoying democratic processes; yet we openly wonder why we can’t have nice things in the greater society. In other words, even studying to beat the spots at your one-two game can be a stimulating if not enriching experience. The mind must work on something and should generally start where the stakes are small. Sklansky and Malmuth provide some guidance for doing exactly that, as usual.
Here’s the Poker Stories interview with David that I mention. Thanks for listening.
The post PZ 90: Sklansky Goes Bumhunting appeared first on Out of Position.
OOP Oberleutnant Greg Porter returns to the Zoo pod for an update on his successful career as poker pro. I can’t believe it’s been six years! Time has really flown since the early days of our little group and teaching community.
Greg is an indispensable and senior member of said little community. He runs the OOP training games, providing high-level poker feedback, and specialized coaching. Greg edits my more challenging pieces and, more importantly, provides timely puns in the Poker Zoo chat.
On today’s episode, we hear about his games, and in particular about the influence of the Stand-up Game on mid/high action.
We then go through some of the highlights of 2023 in poker, the year of Doyle’s departure, Berkey’s ascension, and the long-needed return of produced poker content. Speaking of, here’s that opinion piece where I called for the return of production and writing to poker media.
After a short mental game interlude, we get into some hands from his local games.
A previous episode with Porter.
Here’s today’s hands discussed:
Hand #1 10/25 6.3Ke 8h
s5 75
s6 c
s2 c 88ds
Ac5d4h
s2 x/f
s5 100
s6 c
6d
s5 275/c
s6 1100
Jh
s5 x
s6 5025ai
Hand #2 10/20/40 8Ke 8h
s7 130/c
s8 c/c
s1 650 AJss
Qs9d8s
s1 600
s7 c
s8 f
8h
s1 x
s7 x
2c
s1 x
s7 2500
Best wishes in 2024.
The post PZ 89: Porter Returns & 2023 Poker Review appeared first on Out of Position.
It’s been a long time since I played in Washington, but the scene continues to evolve, however strangely. See, it’s all about the weird rules and regulations. Podcast guest Mannes N. gives us an update on the state of the games.
The most important details are the rules for the tribal casinos and the rules for non-tribals, which are particularly hard on the poker player. To complicate matters, the tribes have basically quit the poker business, taking the big bets with them, and forcing all the traffic into small rooms around (but not within) Seattle.
Basically, that’s why Eric Persson, owner of many of the small poker rooms, can punt your rake money off at a surprising rate. It’s a great time to own a poker room in Washington State.
Mannes regularly plays at the Caribbean and Fortune rooms, two of the most popular in the current Seattle poker market. He occasionally posts on his “Owlkeeper” blog about poker, mainly tournament trips to Vegas. Here’s a post regarding the local games.
Living in the Raleigh, NC area, Mickey and I started to frequent bar league freeroll tournaments (lots of fun) and landed in our first home game, a low stakes NL progressive-blinds game upping the blinds every 30 minutes.My first live cash tournament was at Mirage, 2009. I fearfully deposited the $85 buyin and with about 23 runners won the event for something like $575. Needless to say I had no idea what I was doing, played like a passive nit and ran well.
In the second part of the pod, we go over a couple hands under the Spread Limit regime.
HH #1:
– Cardroom: Fortune Renton, 3/5, buyin cap 1,000, betting cap 300. Discuss the 300 constraint and if/how it should influence play.
– Stack: 1080 (216 BB)
– Setup: 8 handed, Villain is Vpiping higher than most of the table, no prior history
– Hero is in S4, Main V is S5 (using the S1=Small Blind convention)
Preflop:
– S3 limp/call
– Hero S4 with A6hh 20
– Villian S5 call, V’s stack covers me
– Pot 60 after $8 rake
Flop: 652 with one heart
– S3 check/fold
– Hero S4 check/call
– S5 40
– Pot 140
Turn: Qh
– Hero S4 check/call
– S5 80
– Pot 300
River: offsuit 8
– Hero S4 check/ action to be revealed
– S5 250HH #2:
– Cardroom: Caribbean Kirkland, 1/3, buyin cap 590, betting cap 300. Caribbean recently became part of Maverick gaming owned by Eric Persson of high stakes cash game infamy. The clientele is generally older than that of Fortune, it also gets some of the local tech crowd.
– Stack 515
– Setup: 7 handed, early in the session
– Hero is in S2 (bb)
Preflop:
– S4 10. This is “Jack” a 70-ish fun player who was once ejected from another cardroom for smuggling hard liquor in his “water bottle”. Likely playing a linear range with a short stack of approx. $110.
– S7 call, s approx $400. When he sat down he was introduced by someone else as an “action player” and seemed to live up to the tagline so far.
– Hero S2 with AQo call
– Pot 30 after rake
Flop: A86 rb– Hero S2 check/ call– S4 20
– S7 call
– Pot 90
Turn brick – think it was a 2
– Hero S2 check / 165
– S4 40/ call for approx 80 all in
– S7 call/call leaving 200 behind
– Pot 500
River 5
– Hero S2 check/ action to be revealed
– S7 200 all in
Mannes is also a thoughtful commenter on my blog, I want to thank him and all those readers who like to leave their thoughts – kind of the whole point, some would say.
The post PZ 88: Washington State Poker with Mannes N appeared first on Out of Position.
The poker world loves tournaments in the 2020’s. Online, tournament culture is vital and MTT-heavy while cash game action stalls. GG has challenged Pokerstars with huge tournaments series. U.S.-facing ACR continues to thrive. As for the live scene, everyone is amazed at the action, with WSOP and WPT now vying almost non-stop for your dollars; did I see they were bringing back the NAPT? I give in. Today we talk with one of the best in tournament poker, Enrico Camosci, and hear what it takes to rise to the top of the MTT food chain.
Enrico has had a huge 202o’s so far, with an online bracelet and multiple big results, leaving him with about $2.5 million in online wins. In Spring he took third for a massive score at the EPT Monte Carlo high roller; maybe that’s why he’s even started to scale back the grind and hang with the live whales.
Despite his success, the only way you may know him is that Enrico was the televised victim of a curious slow roll that got a little attention in 2021. Not really sure what Sam Grafton is thinking here.
In this interview I didn’t focus on results and trophies too much, but process. I wanted to hear how Enrico got to the top of the (specifically Euro) MTT world, and so I asked a lot of questions about what he does. In general, it sounds like an intense dive into specific spots but also returning to the spot later, in cyclical fashion, is his studying and coaching key. It’s certainly true that two weeks on a single board BU V BB is going to yield a lot of fruit, for instance, but you must also come back to it to truly own the knowledge.
I’m thinking he’s doing it right. If I study like him, can I be a thirty-year old vacationing in Paris, tired from beating the games in Monte Carlo? Definitely.
Once a novelty, there is now even a school of thought that tournaments have more complexity than cash games; with changing stacks, levels, and tougher competition, I think they may be right. Hope you enjoy my first chat with Enrico. You can find him on Insta, and also contact him at his in-development coaching site, MTTgod.
The post PZ 87: Enrico Camosci’s Tournament Focus appeared first on Out of Position.
Vegas is home to more than just gaming, it is home to the history of those games and to those who created that history. Richie Brodie, lifelong “poker bum,” has played with all the greats, from Doyle and his “southern” crew, to the Mayfair’s Erik Seidel, to California’s rising 1990’s NL scene with Bobby Hoff and Barry Greenstein (along with an apparently more reluctant Dan Harrington). Today we hear his story and the story of a whole age of poker, from the pre-internet obscurity of the late seventies to a comfortable seat at the Sahara deepstack game of the Covid era.
Richie starts in upper New York but is soon drawn to the Nevada games, led by his older brother, a gambler and expert sports bettor. I say Nevada deliberately, as there is a great deal of less-told history surrounding Reno, Tahoe, San Jose, and the rest of western cards; Las Vegas just wasn’t the only place. As Richie emphasizes, the games moved, and the players followed, from famous rooms to forgotten obscurities. (One of the casinos Richie mentions, Harvey’s in Tahoe, was even bombed.)
It sounds like a lot of fun: a bunch of guys who love poker gathering at Caesar’s Tahoe for two weeks of around-the-clock-play.
Think again. This is serious business.
The approximately 100 entrants in the casino’s third annual Superstars of Poker tournament huddle intently around the fifteen tables in the roped-off tournament area.
Their concentration is so intense it is nearly impenetrable. Neither the smoke hanging heavy in the air nor the persistent clanking of coins in nearby slot machines is enough to jolt the players out of their poker-induced trance.
A television broadcasting a college basket all game goes unnoticed for hours. Finally, a passing cocktail waitress turns it off.
from the Reno Gazette-Journal, “Poker More Than a Game for Tournament Players,” probably early 1990’s
For point of reference, when Richie first started playing seriously in the late seventies, David Sklansky, with whom he would soon be playing against, had just published Hold’em Poker, one of the first modern poker books. Doyle Brunson’s Super System would not appear until 1979.
I think I missed some questions that poker players would like – the real details of the games, and I mean down to the nitty gritty: what were the sizings, how many players per hand, and such. We know Bobby Hoff introduced a lot of three betting, but what about the others? Yet Richie hints at the answer during the interview, “in reality,” he comments, “the games haven’t changed that much, but the number of players who know what they are doing has.” I think we know what that means.
Enjoy this interview full of poker history.
The post PZ 86: Richie Brodie appeared first on Out of Position.
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 number of noted pros and organizations, including Fausto Valdez and Solve For Why. Gerard had a poker blog, a girlfriend, a residence in sunny Florida, and was finishing up a year cleaning up at live ring games and MTTs.
Then it happened: Covid went from zero public awareness to a full-blown hysterical crisis that would shape the next decade. Covid would also trigger a sequence of events that changed everything for Gerard and his poker life. Soon he’d be signed up with Poker Detox and battling not only to beat the games, but to understand them at a new level, all while making rent.
Today, we find out where he’s at and what he’s learned.
As any poker player will tell you, a significant element of skill is involved in winning at the tables long-term. However, it’s also important to acknowledge the role luck plays in poker too.
We have zero control or say over the poker hands the dealer gives us. Nor do we have any control over the community cards dealt on the flop, turn and river. These variable outcomes can cause short-term volatility in your poker results, known as variance.
Game selection has a major bearing on the cause of variance in poker. If your preference is to enter vast, multi-table tournaments with fields of hundreds or thousands of players, it’s fair to say your poker bankroll will encounter immense variance. That’s because these big-field tournaments carry so much volatility. If you’re playing for hours or even days, it’s possible to experience run-good and then run into the brick wall of a downswing and be knocked out before you’ve even made the money.
-from “What is Variance in Poker?” by poker.org
The Poker Zoo often visits with Coaching for Profits players, check out episodes such as
Episode 43: Luka turns to CFP and Nick Howard
Episode 40: Coaching for Profits with KYT
Episode 36: Odb_Blackbaron/DLF on CFP
and others, including from a coaching perspective.
Food in this episode:Hot Pepper Jelly
2 C Green Bell Peppers cut into pieces for the food processor
1/2 C Jalapenos, chopped – Seeds & webbing removed
For a red version, substitute red bell peppers and just 1/4 C thai chilies
Combine these in a food processor and mince accordingly
Ingredients:
Pepper mash from the food processor
5 3/4 C Sugar
1 C White Vinegar
1 Bottle Certo (or 2 pkgs) This is just Sure Jell or any fruit pectin
Combine Pepper mash, sugar and vinegar in a sauce pan and boil for 5 min, then turn heat off and leave for 20 minutes.
Add fruit pectin and boil hard for 2 minutes.
Ladle into small canning jars (we use pint size) and can using typical water bath canning procedure.
For a quick appetizer for parties, you can simply serve over a block of Philadelphia cream cheese.
If you have access to a smoker you can take it to the next level by sprinkling some BBQ rub on the cream cheese and smoking it at low heat (190F) and then serve in the same way as above.
Pepper Jelly also works well for Holiday parties (thus the red and green colors) on a charcuterie tray with other cheeses and ‘Nancy’s famous cheese ball recipe.’
8 oz Cream cheese
1 C Colby cheese (grated)
3 oz Chipped dried beef (or country ham chipped)
1 t Garlic powder
1 t Onion powder
1 t Accent
Outer covering:
½ C Walnuts, chopped
2 T Chives, chopped
Mix all the cheese and seasonings together and form into one large ball or 2 smaller balls.
Chill until ready to serve
Thanks for listening. Be sure to rate the Poker Zoo on Apple podcasts or elsewhere.
The post PZ 85: Gerard Moves On appeared first on Out of Position.
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 […]
The post PZ 84: SDJen to Las Vegas Grinder appeared first on Out of Position.
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 […]
The post PZ 83: Limon Returns, For Now appeared first on Out of Position.
Welcome back to the Poker Zoo, now a little long in the tooth but looking to finish strong. We never really left, of course, but I did need a personal break to focus on writing; Dean, my co-host and producer, was suffering a significant personal tragedy concurrently. So, a pause in the action. We persist […]
The post PZ 82: Split Decision with Mathew “Clayvision” Ossi appeared first on Out of Position.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! For our final episode of 2022, Dean and I talk shop and how it’s going for him. We discuss poker swings, education, and the unpleasant, hard reason why some players succeed while others keep running in place.
The conversation branches off into the plan, or lack of, for the Poker Zoo. Oops, letting the outsiders know what we’re thinking.
Then, Dean interrogates me over what’s behind my return to poker writing. Has the new stuff changed in tone from the old? Here’s a bit from Here and Back Again:
So, instead of focusing on relationships, I have been determined to ride it and my mission here out, to lie in my bed like the cinema nouveau Samurai, rising only to carry out my task before returning to the literal darkness of my dwelling. I’d also hoped to leave sometime soon, to not commit, and that half-measure has influenced me, but a feeling has been coming over me that my life elsewhere is over. I dream constantly of my past, of my home, my friends and enemies, not as if beckoning a happy return but as if they have been sublimated into the challenges of the present. I almost fear sleep, knowing it comes at the cost of nightmares and memories I’d rather forget. It sometimes seems that I am always awake, always sore, and always tired.
We went over some of the Sahara game experience on this episode, you can compare it to this talk with Dean from 2021.
We close with a couple fun hands from Dean’s cash games.
2/5 8 handed $900 eff
3 (1000) b20/c
4 c/f
6 (900) r115 KKhd(260) 985ccs
3 (885) x/c
6 (785) b85(430) Jd
3 x
6 x(430) 4s
3 (800) b175
6 (700) c
——————————————–
1/2 8 handed $300 eff3 limps to me
1 (300) 1/r31
7 (450) c/c
8 (400) r15/c AQdc(99) Q78hhd
1 (270) b25
7 (420) c
8 (370) c(174) Qs
1 (245) b80
7 (395) c
8 (345) c(414) 5s
1 (165) x/shove
7 (315) x/f
8 (265) b125/c
The post PZ 81: Family Business appeared first on Out of Position.
Yes, the Poker Zoo returns amid the poker crisis, but not the one you think. Previous guest Fernando is back, troubled by developments on the casino floor caused by the lack of top-notch dealers. That doesn’t keep me, having restrained myself from much commenting during the most heated days, from getting his thoughts on the […]
The post PZ 80: Fernando Talks to the Manager appeared first on Out of Position.
The poker vlogging movement is only ten years old but has probably done more for keeping poker in the public eye than any pro celebrity of the era: the vloggers matter. It all mostly started with Tim “The Trooper” and few other experimenters and click revenue hopefuls (including the unfortunate Mark Ari). Then, the number […]
The post PZ 79: Fast Times with Slow Poker appeared first on Out of Position.
This week Dr. Robert Samuels returns to the Zoo to talk about the latest round of poker cheating accusations and scandals. Robert recently polished up an old solution – can the online game operators work together to fight cheats? Can there be a governing body to adjudicate poker? While I cynically don’t find this sort…
The post Poker Zoo 78: Scandal Therapy, with Dr. Robert Samuels appeared first on Out of Position.
We stay in the live streets this week and talk hands with Ralph B., a low-stakes cash game reg I know through Red Chip Poker. As for many players, Covid shook up Ralph’s poker life, and in his case, decided it was time to turn a break-even passetemps into a winning habit. Today, we find…
The post Poker Zoo 77: Tight Ralph Raises His Game appeared first on Out of Position.
Dean is unleashed this week and talks with a familiar face, east coast tournament grinder, limit player, and general smart-ass Yaser Al-Keliddar. If you’re on the tournament joyride, you know Yaser or should get to know him – he’s a great table presence. In today’s pod, Al-Keliddar recounts his rough introduction to the game involving…
The post Poker Zoo 76: Yaser Al-Keliddar Beats Captive Audience appeared first on Out of Position.
Vagabond vet DGAF called him “Tom Brady Jr.” but in reality, the story is more interesting than just always getting there at the right time. Las Vegas live pro Nate Serisky takes us through his year – well, not of living dangerously exactly, as he’s on stake and decent with money management – but of…
The post Poker Zoo 75: That New Pro Life, with Nate Serisky appeared first on Out of Position.
Thomas Pinnock of Zenith Poker returns to the Zoo to review his most challenging year in poker. In addition to releasing a controversial new set of exploitative ranges and taking on a six-max challenge, Thomas kicked up a series of related kerfuffles with a video mocking many preflop ranges. Trouble followed on multiple fronts, and…
The post Poker Zoo 74: Thomas Against the Simps appeared first on Out of Position.
Today we go behind the scenes and talk to Shaun Yaple, General Manager of the Hustler Casino in Gardena, California. I find out what it takes to run a card room and where does poker fits in. We discuss the unusual ecosystem of L.A. Poker, including some advice for all struggling card rooms and poker…
The post Poker Zoo 73: Hustler Shaun appeared first on Out of Position.
On the cusp of a new year, new ventures. One is returning guest Michael Lukich’s two-pronged effort to improve your game through better solver and data study, Solver School. It’s still in creation, but Michael has burned the ships: we find out that he has quit his day job and is committed to poker and…
The post Poker Zoo 72: Michael Lukich’s Solver School appeared first on Out of Position.
It’s our holiday podcast. When we last checked in with TBR member Luka Vitasovic, he was settling into a long “coaching for profits” contract with Nick Howard’s Poker Detox program. Today, in a continuation of our CFP series, we find out how that’s gone. Is Luka crushing or mushing? Here’s the rest of our Coaching…
The post Poker Zoo 71: More Coaching, More Profits, with Luka V appeared first on Out of Position.
It’s time to reach across the country and check in with Poker Zoo co-host Dean Martin, who lives and plays on the other side of the garbage heap. How did Dean (and Mrs. Dean) get through the ‘rona and what is he up to now? More from Dean and Persuadeo on learning poker. Unfortunately, we…
The post Poker Zoo 70: Dean Escapes Death, Gambling Ensues appeared first on Out of Position.
It’s back to what promises to be a bumpy podcast grind with Zoo favorite Jason Burge, aka JamBasket Poker, one of Michigan’s big online cash winners. We hit as many topics as possible with some drive-by commentary. Burge is already kind enough to offer some valuable analysis and recap on his obscure JamBasket Youtube channel;…
The post Poker Zoo 69: A Lotta Problems With You People, featuring JamBasket appeared first on Out of Position.
Poker, crypto, and the Non-Fungible Token craze are all well-met bedfellows: exciting, profitable, and a little grimey. Overnight Monster and Bluff Barbarian creator Alvin Lau took a flyer on a new NFT project this year, Hungry Ghosts, and this is his story. Listen to him on today’s Zoo describe many of the truths of NFT…
The post Poker Zoo 68: Tokens, Tools, and Fools, with Alvin Lau appeared first on Out of Position.
It’s the end of an era at Twoplustwo, but the conversation, especially on controversial topics, doesn’t stop. Robert Samuels has been a major contributor to the gem of 2+2 media, its monthly magazine, and joins us today on the Zoo for poker psychology talk. Samuels is a double doctorate and professor at UC Santa Barbara…
The post Poker Zoo 67: Bad Beat Therapy appeared first on Out of Position.
A special episode as the two co-hosts talk together for the first time in a while. Dean starts by getting all the details on the deep stack cash game I started at the Sahara Las Vegas in January. Dean brings up one of the most important questions that can be asked in the poker training…
The post Poker Zoo 66: The Sahara Game, Dean’s Game, the Learning Game appeared first on Out of Position.
If you play in the OOP deepstack training game, or more abstractly, in any online game, you’ve played a hand with Travis Moss. An increasingly reformed tight aggressive, Travis is a student of the game, with a lot of training sites and study behind him. On reflection, Travis seems like a good example of a…
The post Poker Zoo 65: Travis Gets the Grease appeared first on Out of Position.
The question of what makes for a successful casino poker room has been on my mind because it has to be: I’ve been running the unusual Sahara deep-stack game and trying to reseed low stakes PLO as well. Hence this series of podcasts dedicated to questions about the industry including Steven Pique, Mason Malmuth, and…
The post Poker Zoo 64: Greg Raymer on the Cardrooms appeared first on Out of Position.
Twoplustwo publisher and prolific author Mason Malmuth joins the Zoo to discuss a disagreement on luck and skill and how it influences the games, but it quickly turns into a broader conversation about what makes casino poker rooms go. That’s in part thanks to Mason’s announcement of his new book, a work in progress tentatively…
The post Poker Zoo 63: Mason Malmuth on Live Card Rooms appeared first on Out of Position.
Today we get the perspective of the people who design and run the casino poker show, thanks to guest Steven Pique. Steven has climbed the poker industry ladder in classic fashion, starting with dealing on the WSOP circuit, moving to the Aria, and now running the Sahara Poker Room. We go over the details a…
The post Poker Zoo 62: Poker Room Manager Steven Pique appeared first on Out of Position.
Continuing our recent tour of contemporary poker coaches, today the Zoo welcomes Uri Peleg, formerly of Run It Once and now founder and head coach at Guerrilla Poker. Joined by online poker strategy innovator Grindcore, Guerrilla offers a very experienced and compelling take on the GTO/Exploitation paradigm that we’re always working with in contemporary poker.…
The post The Poker Zoo 61: Uri Peleg’s Guerrilla Warfare appeared first on Out of Position.
Episode nine guest FAO returns to give us the word on the live poker market. After being a Vegasite for most of post-Black Friday, he’s resettled in the suddenly popular state of Texas, where everything is growing – including the poker. Fernando describes his search for the way out of LV and the lure of…
The post The Poker Zoo 60: Fernando in Texas appeared first on Out of Position.
Instagram chip pornographer Fausto Valdez returns to the Zoo; has he been following the rules? In any case, Fausto’s been splashing around L.A. long enough to get into the private games and see the real action, plus play some poker. He gives us the lowdown on his run to the high stakes, including a sweet…
The post The Poker Zoo 59: Fausto’s Third Eye appeared first on Out of Position.
Mysterious poker training philanthropist? Imperturbable doctor who RNGs your diagnosis? Legendary Zynga shark? For our first podcast of the new year, I’m pleased to welcome Thomas Pinnock, the enigma who has created one of the most comprehensive poker learning communities on the web. Zenith Poker features every aspect of serious study, including a learning path,…
The post The Poker Zoo 58: Pinnock’s Zenith appeared first on Out of Position.
The year-ending edition of the Zoo. Suitably, I talk with The Back Room standby Jason Burge, author of the JamBasket series of videos. We go over his year in poker, and hit some highlights of the greater poker scene as well. (Apparently I already forgot about Phil Galfond: hey, but what have you done for…
The post The Poker Zoo 57: Mind Blown appeared first on Out of Position.
Today on the Zoo I interview Dr. Brian Space, scientist and 2+2 poker writer. Dr. Space came to my attention after Matt Berkey tweeted out the article “GTO, the Value of Information, and the Nature of the Solution to No-limit Hold ‘em,” which supported Matt’s long-held contention that “GTO” poker is not nearly fully explored…
The post The Poker Zoo 56: Space Exploration appeared first on Out of Position.
Professional and coach Alvin Lau of Overnight Monster returns to tackle big subjects in poker. We start with an update on Alvin’s successful move to much bigger games. With that fun news behind us, we advance the discussion Porter and I had on the somewhat exaggerated worries about Real Time Assistance; discuss the noted Brian…
The post The Poker Zoo 55: Alvin Moves Up appeared first on Out of Position.
I turn to none other than our co-host and production magic man Dean Martin to get the scoop on the Covid pandemic’s effect on the home game/private game scene. Poker has always been in a grey area legally, but with new wrinkles come new opportunities. Dean takes us through all of it, down to competing…
The post The Poker Zoo 54: Local Private Game, Corona Style appeared first on Out of Position.
Today’s guest is Martin Harris, author of Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game. Martin is a top-tier poker writer, responsible for possibly the most informative and researched poker blog ever, a decade of poker journalism, two novels, and as of 2019, what is likely the most complete history of…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 53: Poker & Pop Culture appeared first on Out of Position.
Scientific Poker Strategy creator Greg Porter, who has been grinding hard throughout the Covid lockdown, returns to the Zoo today. It’s a packed episode as we not only go over playing on Ignition, Bros, and the OOP training game, I get back to some strategy with two hand reviews. Porter reports on successfully getting a…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 52: Porter Goes Bananas appeared first on Out of Position.
Today I speak with mental game proselytizer, new author, Poker Detox advisor, and suspiciously even-keeled guest Jason Su on the pod. While Daniel and Doug swordfight for your clicks, Jason has made a more useful splash in poker 2020 with his book, blog, and appearances all over poker training media. I grill him on the…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 51: Jason Su is Present appeared first on Out of Position.
The Zoo returns with TBR member “BFSkinner”, a grinder on WSOP.com and in the Las Vegas live games. While I was focused on hearing about the state of poker in gambling central, we also ended up covering Skinner’s poker path from Moneymaker to the Covid-19 boom online he’s enjoyed. We also get back to talking…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 50: “BFSkinner” appeared first on Out of Position.
This week on the Zoo Jerry Monaco, once the popular Imperator on the Red Chip Poker forum, emerges from radio silence. Back in the day on RCP when not only their founders posted but we were joined by Matt Berkey, Christian Soto, and other names in poker, Jerry gave us some of our most thoughtful…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 49: Jerry aka Imperator appeared first on Out of Position.
The Zoo continues to talk to poker coaches, with this week’s guest being Doug Hull of the popular Red Chip Poker low-stakes training site. Doug was one of four original founders, which also include James “Splitsuit” Sweeney, Solve 4 Why’s Christian Soto, and of course the “noted poker authority” himself, Ed Miller. Doug tells us…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 48: Doug Hull and the Easy Life appeared first on Out of Position.
Alvin Lau returns to the Zoo to talk poker industry and to continue our series covering the coaching for profits scene. We go over both coaching successes and failures, and investigate their causes. Yes, Alvin gets in some direct thoughts about other training sites, but his attitude has clearly changed as he settles into a…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 47: Alvin Teaches Poker Coaching appeared first on Out of Position.
A remarkable guest on today’s Zoo – Andrew Seidman (aka Baluga Whale for the true old schoolers), author of Easy Game. One of poker’s finest texts, TBR members are especially familiar with the book, and really, most poker players should be. Part strategy document, part coaching journal, it can be read in a very light…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 46: Andrew Seidman & Easy Game appeared first on Out of Position.
Today on the Zoo we speak with long time sports betting and poker writer Paul Hewson. He’s an avid tournament player who shares with us how he got into the game and became a winner. (For the curious, here’s some Hewson pieces on Bodog.) We talk Corona, how to learn poker, tournament strategy, and try…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 45: Paul Hewson & Poker Writing appeared first on Out of Position.
Micheal Lukich returns to the Zoo, and a lot has changed for him. Michael is playing bigger, winning more, and has come into his own as a participant in the poker community. For the student of the game, he has created a poker learning website worth looking at. He’s made public appearances on the controversial…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 44: Lukich Out Loud appeared first on Out of Position.
It’s great to be back talking to a TBR member, in this case Luka V. from Episode 2. Luka’s life has changed significantly since we last talked. In the midst of personal and financial upheaval, Luka turned to Poker Detox for a Coaching for Profits opportunity in order to rebuild his roll and continue his…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 43: Luka Turns to CFP and Nick H appeared first on Out of Position.
This week’s Zoo brings us to a well-known but still somewhat anonymous player who goes by the moniker DGAF. As you’ll hear or have been hearing through his podcast Sessions, he actually GAF about quite a few things. He’s presently in the fight of his life as he attempts to grind his through troubles, debt,…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 42: DGAF about the Abyss appeared first on Out of Position.
Special edition today, focused on OOP’s partner coach, Greg Porter. Greg will present a webinar titled Scientific Poker Strategy: Using GTO+ to Explore and Design Robust Strategies on Saturday, March 21st. Having established himself as a successful professional player, this last year Greg has been quietly expanding his poker coaching practice: this seminar is one…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 41: Scientific Strategy with Porter appeared first on Out of Position.
On the pod this week is Kar Yung Tom, a serious Magic and Chess player who has recently recommitted to winning poker by joining a Coaching For Profits program. We explore what led Kar to a life completely surrounded by competitive gaming, and get opinions from him on the similarities and differences between these pursuits…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 40: Coaching for Profits with KYT appeared first on Out of Position.
Thank you for making us the fastest Growing Poker Podcast! Grant Denison and Jonathan Levy help me kick off 2020’s Zoo podcasts. Known as the The Poker Guys, Grant and Jonathan have a voluminous profile of content, from Youtube videos which include a very fun Portland RFID game, to an extremely in-depth, hand-history focused podcast.…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 39: The Poker Guys appeared first on Out of Position.
Thank you for making us the fastest Growing Poker Podcast! Dean and listeners share some fun grievances for this important day. Merry Christmas and enjoy the holidays.
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 38: Festivus appeared first on Out of Position.
Thank you for making us the fastest Growing Poker Podcast! Merry Christmas to all Zoo listeners! I close the year appropriately by interviewing the true hero of the Poker Zoo podcast, co-host and “announcer guy” Dean Martin. I kick things off with some overdue ranting about the blinkered poker community, then Dean coaxes out some…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 37: Dean appeared first on Out of Position.
On this week’s Poker Zoo we take a look at the world of Coaching for Profits through an interview with Francois N., a content creator, trusted TBR poster, and microstakes grinder I have known for many years. Francois has gone by several different screen names, including Adam Wheeler – a name and story you should look…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 36: Odb_Blackbaron/DLF on Coaching for Profits appeared first on Out of Position.
This week on the Zoo, a busy poster in the TBR forums joins us, the one and only Joe Offsuit. Completely dedicated to playing in our deepstack practice game, Joey records all the action and often posts up to ten hands from the game for discussion. Joe isn’t just a poker player, but a true…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 35: Joe Offsuit and PPPoker appeared first on Out of Position.
This week Dean interviews Pat Bourke, successful businessman, entrepreneur and poker player. Pat was generous enough to share some of his memorable life lessons, how he leveraged risk and opportunities to create financial success, and a few fun poker stories. Have something interesting to share? Call 410 775 6224 and leave a message or record…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 34: Pat Bourke, Lessons in Life, Business and Poker appeared first on Out of Position.
New pro alert. Today on the podcast we talk to Solve For Why and Fausto acolyte Gerard Sukhram, who is making poker his full time work in Florida. Gerard tells us about his new blog, Gerard Plays Poker, and how his life in education continues to influence his current and future plans. We discuss tournaments,…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 33: Gerard appeared first on Out of Position.
Back after a brief hiatus, I speak with one of the latest TBR members, Greg, who just completed Construction 1 and 2. Greg lives and plays in the PNW with another TBR mainstay, Luka who appeared on episode two. After years of not going anywhere in one-two games, Greg is now applying himself and is,…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 32: Greg & OOP Club Games appeared first on Out of Position.
This week Persuadeo is away so Dean interviews east coast pro Chase Bianchi. Chase has almost a million dollars in live tournament winnings, at least one WSOP bracelet that I know of, plays quite a few tournaments as well as live cash, while also keeping a great work/life balance. We discuss life in Boston, his…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 31: Chase Bianchi on East Coast Poker appeared first on Out of Position.
Today I speak with Ken Kohl, a long, long-time mid-stakes Las Vegas cash game pro. Kenny went through something of a rejuvenation last year after attending the liberating Solve For Why Academy, and has entered the second half of his career with a fresh perspective on how he and Vegas plays (and should play) poker.…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 30: Ken Kohl on Vegas Cash appeared first on Out of Position.
Episode one guest Greg Porter returns to the Zoo. We talk about his post-WSOP shift to Ignition online, discuss the talented streamer Invoker, and confront an interesting hand in TBR that’s really not about the hand. The podcast closes with a hint of what’s come at OOP. Greg also runs the Out of Position PPPoker Club…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 29: Porter appeared first on Out of Position.
I check in with player and coach Fausto Valdez, who has made big life changes since we last spoke to him on on episode three. Fausto just completed a long-planned move to L.A. with his girlfriend; his website is up; and – surprise – he’s been caught working with a solver. We talk about the…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 28: Fausto appeared first on Out of Position.
This week I speak with “life-long beginner” Steve B., currently a TBR member, and a lurker on channels and forums throughout the scene. We ramble over a number of poker topics, among them Texas poker, the nearby Winstar, how to learn, who to learn from, and the tribulations of various poker personalities. We focus at the…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 27: Steve appeared first on Out of Position.
On this week’s Zoo, I reach out to Soto prodigy and Instagram road rager Chris Konvalinka. We hear about his fast and furious entry into the Vegas scene, including an immediate stake and the roller coaster after. Chris also talks about his S4Y connection and finding his community. In the strategy section, we go over…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 26: Chris K. appeared first on Out of Position.
I catch up with poker coach Alvin Lau, who first joined the Zoo on episode 6. Since then, Alvin has been busily becoming a compelling content creator, but most recently has been examining the database of Pluribus hands. We talk about the result, Pluribus’ overall strategy, what a few of those who had success against…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 25: Alvin On Pluribus appeared first on Out of Position.
The Poker Zoo Podcast was created with intention of keeping track of TBR members and others. Today we return to online and live cash player Jason Burge, whom we talked to in Episode 6. Jason, an avid experimenter, has continued to tinker with his game, but is increasingly spending time in PPPoker games. Under the…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 24: Jason appeared first on Out of Position.
In the second episode of the “doubleheader” promised this week, I interview East coast tournament grinder Greg Candido. Our focus is on his run to Day 7 of the 2019 WSOP Main Event (104th for $59,295). We start with Greg’s background and the poker club that helped prepare him, then go over each day of…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 23: Greg Candido’s Main Event appeared first on Out of Position.
After a break for the WSOP, we’re back in the Zoo. Our guest is Adam Zerner, a low stakes online and live player I met in Las Vegas. An accomplished coder, Adam has created NLHE equity analysis software he calls Premium Poker Tools. This web-based application is an expansion on the Flopzilla and Equilab idea,…
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 22: Adam Zerner’s PPT appeared first on Out of Position.
In this episode of the Zoo, TBR members discuss the culture of low to mid stakes cash at WSOP 2019. We cover strategy trends, game culture, venues, and, of course, the food of Las Vegas. Also, an announcement from Dean: Have a comment about the show but don’t feel like typing an email or comment? …
The post The Poker Zoo, Ep. 21: The WSOP Cash Scene appeared first on Out of Position.
We return to our regular programming this week, with the hard-working David C., an RCP and TBR member. We talk about his off-table study but focus on a deep, straddled multiway hand where the type of flush draw and potential passive dead money informs which action hero should take. David reviews the 1% NB: Hand…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 20: David appeared first on Out of Position.
Charles Murray @CharlesMurray is a political / social scientist and prolific author. His writings, although not without controversy, make him a regular guest on the Sunday morning political TV shows. He also happens to enjoy playing poker and he happens to be rather good at it. Just a few hours ago he finished in the…
The post The (Poker) Zoo Ep. 19: Charles Murray appeared first on Out of Position.
On the Zoo this week, it’s Nick Ronyecz, host of the TBR subforum Chasing the Dragon. We talk about his background, his continuing tournament success, a little WSOP planning, and take apart a low-stakes cash game hand where Nick faces two leads from a reg. 2/5 at the Wynn: 700 effective Folds to me in…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 18: Nick appeared first on Out of Position.
Rob S. has accrued a nearly unique record of the post-Black Friday live poker scene at the heart of the West Coast game, Las Vegas and California. We talk about poker, his blog, and his observations on the state of what might be the most important pool of players in our game – the novice…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 17: Rob and His Blog appeared first on Out of Position.
Dean and Persuadeo talk about the poker scene, relieve confusion over poker learning and education, and then lay out a simple recipe for enjoying the WSOP. (It might include brisket.) One of the most confusing concepts the aspiring poker player will encounter is the notion of an overall Strategy. Perhaps surprisingly, it is counter-intuitive to…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 16: Persuadeo on Learning Poker appeared first on Out of Position.
The long-time sage of Los Angeles poker, Abe Limon, calls in from the golf course on this week’s Zoo. We catch up with the life of this successful gambler, now enjoying what he calls “functional retirement.” Limon explains the latest in his string of social media exits, gives poker and life advice, and tells us…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 15: Limon appeared first on Out of Position.
We celebrate Christian Holden’s first day as professional player with this week’s podcast. Christian is an original member of TBR. He participated in the first Easy Game group, which helped send five students to the S4Y, and has gone on to both their Elite and MTT academies. He’s since played steadily online and live, including…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 14: Christian appeared first on Out of Position.
Known appropriately both online and in TBR as Derdonker, Andrew is fresh off the latest Easy Game study group, and rapidly becoming the volatile live force he wants to be. We discuss the San Jose games, his learning path with Fausto and Solve For Why, heads-up poker with a disgruntled vlogger, and playing on the…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 13: Andrew appeared first on Out of Position.
Bruce is a Sacramento area player who has worked with me through a number of courses and privates. We discuss his arrival in poker, why he plays, and his games, chiefly at Stones Gambling Hall. We finish with quite some time handling this multi-way spot and related ideas. $1/3 $1100 effective with the Villain…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 12: Bruce appeared first on Out of Position.
Persuadeo, aka Cmurray on the Borgata Poker Tournament Blog, talks about his experience writing tournament coverage. We cover incidents common to tournament blogging, the highs and lows of the work, and how it is done. Thanks to Announcer Voice/Poker Zoo producer Dean for running the show. Example post: covering the Pokermantis for the BFPO …
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 11: Tournament Blogging appeared first on Out of Position.
Michael Lukich, new member of the The Back Room, has a strongly rejuvenated interest in poker. We talk about his path, his coming attendance at the S4Y Academy, but most of all, his first video for TBR, Flop Characteristics and their Effect on EV. There are many flop simplification analyses and efforts in poker circles…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 10: Lukich appeared first on Out of Position.
This week’s guest is the infamous FAO – Fernando Ortiz. He’s been through the Easy Game Group and the Solve For Why Academy, helping make him a solid winner in his games. We talk Vegas, trading, Face Equity, and a multi-way spot facing an unexpected flop lead. Stakes 1/3 S3 ($900) young asian male, gf…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 9: Fernando appeared first on Out of Position.
This week on the Zoo, founding TBR member and cash game player Julie McGrath. She tells how she got into poker, both live and online. There’s a little GOT talk, naturally, and then we discuss a multi-way spot she played on Global. 100 NL 6 max UTG open $3 ($87) MP call [Ks][Js] ($100) SB…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 8: Julie appeared first on Out of Position.
Christian Soto is a pro, coach, and much more. An early TBR member, he comes back after a long absence to talk commentary and strategy. He also discusses his poker academy Solve For Why – and criticism of it. Christian on Twitter.
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 7: Soto appeared first on Out of Position.
This week features Jason Burge, who has very actively studied within my coaching circle since the inception of The Back Room, having taken both the Easy Game Group and both Construction courses. Jason has reached the biggest games in his surprisingly active poker home, Detroit. Hand History: 2/5 live, 9 handed, $500 effective. EP, HJ,…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 6: Jason appeared first on Out of Position.
Zac Shaw has moved from blogger and podcaster at Red Chip Poker, to working on their growing content and business side. Zac interviewed Persuadeo twice for the RCP Podcast, so today the tradition continues but with the roles reversed. 3 limps, HIJ raises to $7, BTN & SB calls, Hero calls in BB with AdTh.…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 5: Zac appeared first on Out of Position.
On the latest Zoo, a discussion with Alvin Lau, who is an influence on member strategy in The Back Room. We talk GTO, its teachings, and the teaching of it. Overnight Monster Alvin’s Youtube Channel
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 4: Alvin appeared first on Out of Position.
This week on the Zoo, Fausto Valdez. Fausto is immersed in poker, and just marked two years in as a professional player. We discuss his life and challenges, as well as go over a hand he played at the Sands. Fausto Valdez, member of TBR, coach at Red Chip Poker, and Solve For Why acolyte. Fausto…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 3: Fausto appeared first on Out of Position.
Episode 2 of the Zoo features Portland reg Luka Vitasovic. His story is a West Coast one, taking him from where Ed Miller got his start in South Seattle’s Muckleshoot Casino, through the dregs of low-stakes, high-rake California games, to the under-appreciated poker scene of Portland, Oregon. Luka shares with us about his many coaching experiences,…
The post The (Poker) Zoo, Ep. 2: Luka appeared first on Out of Position.
For once I can keep this short. OOP: The (Poker) Zoo is a podcast I’ll be developing with Dean Martin and the rest of The Back Room. There’s quite a few podcasts out there, so why listen to this one? Well perfect, maybe you shouldn’t. The Zoo is, above all, for and about members of…
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