Hold ’em Radio Cashes Out?

First found Hold ’em Radio in the fall of 2006. I believe the site had only gone live a few months before. Can’t recall exactly what path led me to locate the site, but as a fan of poker podcasts and forums, I was delighted when I did. Besides hosting what appeared a fairly active forum and sponsoring a number of online freerolls, the site’s main attraction (for me) were the dozen or so podcasts I saw listed, most of which I’d never heard before. The shows could be heard streaming live on the site and/or could be downloaded afterwards as podcasts.

I soon tried out a number of the shows, finding Beyond the Table and Keep Flopping Aces the most consistently enjoyable and informative. BTT ended up moving on in the spring of 2007, going “independent” with its own site and feed. (And recruiting some goofball to write posts for them every now & then.)

Soon afterwards I found myself in Vegas playing poker in Binion’s poker room, and when I was done I went over to visit with Wade Andrews in the Hold ’em Radio kiosk. As I wrote about later, I found Wade a friendly guy and enjoyed our meeting very much. At the time, I recall him talking about future plans for the site, including adding some video broadcasts.

Somewhere around the time of the 2007 WSOP the site went down for a short period, then returned with a different look (a lot of which seemed permanently “under construction”). After that, the archiving of shows became less frequent and inconsistent, and it became increasingly difficult for me to keep up with the two shows I most enjoyed on the site -- Keep Flopping Aces and Poker Psychology.

Then a couple of weeks ago I noticed the site had apparently disappeared altogether. Saw Lou Krieger’s announcement last week that Keep Flopping Aces had moved over to Rounder’s Radio. Then saw Barry Tanenbaum make a similar announcement that Poker Psychology (which he sometimes co-hosted with Al Schoonmaker) was also moving over to Rounder’s. The buzz is a number of other Hold ’em Radio shows will be following suit.

The future of Hold ’em Radio is now up in the air. I’ve seen Schoonmaker mention on a forum that the site “may or may not come back online.” Have also seen posters on other forums saying within the last week that the site would “be back in a week or so.” If I had to guess I’d say those betting on the site’s return are drawing thin. (I hope I’m wrong.)

It was a great idea. And I, for one, am sorry to see it doesn’t seem to have panned out as well as it might have. The successes of other “poker networks” like Rounder’s Radio and PokerRoad attest to the fact that there’s an audience for such a thing -- not necessarily the case when Hold ’em Radio first came on the scene. I guess being “all in all day” proved too difficult to maintain.

Best of luck to Wade and all of the hosts of Hold ’em Radio shows.