Talkin’ Podcasts

A few items of interest on the poker podcast front here of late.

For one, the Hold ’em Radio website appears to be back online. I sent head pirate Wade Andrews a note telling him I was glad to see the site had returned, and he wrote back to say that since they’d come back he had had to increase their stream bandwidth to accommodate all of the folks listening in. The podcast section remains a bit disordered (and not updated), but I’m hoping things settle down over there soon.

Of course, a few of the better Hold ’em Radio shows have emigrated over to Rounder’s Radio, including Keep Flopping Aces (with Lou Krieger) and Poker Psychology (with Dr. Alan Schoonmaker). There are a couple of episodes of KFA available for download over at the Rounder’s site. I believe Schoonmaker is on a brief hiatus and plans to return with his show in the spring.

There’s also a new World Series of Poker podcast which appears essentially to be a revival of the old Bluff Radio show with Nick Geber. The show is broadcast live every Monday night and syndicated on a number of over-the-air stations by the Sports Byline Broadcast Network. I’ve only heard the debut show (featuring yet another Hellmuth interview -- yawn), as it is the only one that has been made available for download.

I suppose there are some folks out there -- perhaps the ones who play online poker 40-plus hours a week -- who can listen to these live networks and shows, but I almost never dial up these things live. Thus, if I can’t hear the show as an .mp3 download, I’m probably not going to. (Those dates listed next to the shows on the right-hand column refer to the latest downloadable show, not necessarily the latest show.)

I know creating the .mp3 files and putting them in the RSS stream takes a bit of time and effort, but I’d think all of these folks would be getting a lot more attention & listeners if they made their shows available more quickly and more regularly.

The other bit of poker podcast news from the last week is that Bart Hanson will no longer be co-hosting PokerRoad Radio (with Joe Sebok and Gavin Smith). Ali Nejad (Poker After Dark, NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, ESPN WSOP PPV) will be assuming the seat formerly occupied by Hanson, Joe Stapleton, and Scott Huff. Hanson did fine, as far as I was concerned, although I preferred the humor and perspective of Stapleton and Huff. Having an amateur on there asking questions and responding to the two pros always made the shows more enjoyable -- for this amateur, anyway. We’ll see how Nejad works out.

(Meanwhile, it appears as though CardPlayer has made “CP Audio” a low, low priority.)

Finally, I’m hearing from Karridy the Beyond the Table guys have shaken off their podcrastination and a new episode is a-comin’ soon. (You read that right. A new coinage for ya.)

To tide you over, go click on the jukebox to hear where the BTT guys get all their bright ideas.