GG, Mike: Farewell Episode Up

Just saw that the new episode of the Two Plus Two Pokercast is now available, the final one featuring co-host Mike Johnson. Sucker’s more than three hours long, but it should be well worth listening to for a few reasons.

I know the show contains a ton of “call backs” to earlier episodes which ought to make it fun as a kind of mini-history lesson of the last decade of poker. Looks like our buddy Kevmath made a guest appearance, too, for a trivia challenge with Mike, which ought to be fun to hear. And lots of different people from the poker world appear live as guests as well as with recorded farewells, too. (There might even be one in there from this longtime fan.)

When I heard Mike was going to leave the show about a month ago, I wrote a post here. I mentioned how sorry I was to hear Mike was leaving the show, but how I also well understood the desire to step away from the constant grind of talking about poker after doing it for so many years.

The show will be continuing with Adam Schwartz who is going to be bringing in different folks to sit alongside him going forward, although there’ll be no replacing Mike.

I’m just starting up the episode, and I’m hearing they began it with the intro to the old Rounders, the Poker Show, the original show Mike and Adam began on the Vancouver sports talk station way back in 2005. Ah, I remember that. This should be fun.

Click here to listen.

Couldn’t Have Played It Any Better, Mike

Heard that recent announcement that Mike Johnson, the longtime co-host of the Two Plus Two Pokercast and before that Rounders, the Poker Show, is going to be stepping away from the poker podcast game in mid-July following the end of festivities this summer at the WSOP. His co-host Adam Schwartz started an “Official Mike Johnson retiring from the Pokercast thread” over on 2+2 where many are chiming in with appreciations and other grins inspired by Johnson.

I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve written here about either the old Rounders show (which I began listening to shortly after it came on the air way back in April 2005) or the Pokercast (which started at the beginning of 2008). Those shows have inspired countless topics over the years that I’ve taken up here, with Mike and Adam both consistently presenting thoughtful, interesting takes on innumerable issues affecting the always interesting poker world.

Last year I had a chance to interview the two of them for Betfair Poker, and they shared a lot of great stories about the history of the show as well as thoughts about the place of it within our little idiosyncratic world of “poker reporting” (or whatever you want to call it).

I’ve also had the chance to meet Mike a few times at the WSOP over the years, including covering him occasionally when he played in events. The most memorable such instance of the latter concerned what was probably one of the more painful moments Mike ever endured at the WSOP.

It was 2011 and Mike was playing in the Main Event, and right near the end of one of the Day 1 flights he got involved in a big hand versus the Russian player Yury Gulyy. In the hand Mike successfully got Gulyy to commit his entire stack on the turn on a 10-high board, at which point Gulyy then turned over Q-Q and Mike showed his K-K.

It was a huge pot, one that would’ve placed Mike right near the chip leaders to end the day. But alas for him a queen came on the river, knocking him almost all of the way back to the starting stack.

“Did you see that, Shamus?” I remember Mike calling out to me that night, just after the hand had ended and the chips were being shipped to his opponent.

It was during the end-of-night scramble for counts and other loose-end-tying activities, and for some reason I just happened to have been passing through his section on my way to where I was stationed on the other side of the Amazon Room. That’s when he related the hand details to me, which I’d report for PokerNews and then write-up a more detailed story of later on Betfair. Regular listeners of the Pokercast might well recognize that hand, as it continues to come up from time to time.

As we talked about a little in that Betfair interview, I think Mike and Adam have provided an incredible service to the poker community over the last almost-decade. Sure, they’ve been doing something they love to do -- it’s obvious -- but while doing so they’ve given a valuable voice for players and everyone else who cares about the game with their reporting and interviewing. They’ve also kept us plenty entertained, too -- check that 2+2 thread for dozens of memorable instances proving that. That pic above, by the way, is a still from Bet Raise Fold containing a shot of Mike (left) and Adam (right) doing their show.

As someone who has stuck with them pretty much without interruption since the very beginning, I’ll miss Mike and what he’s given to us over the years, although as someone who has also been plugging away at discussing poker for nearly as long, I can definitely sympathize with wanting to take a break. It’s an endlessly fascinating game and subculture, but it can be exhausting, too -- it just never stops!

Anyhow, wanted to use some space here to wish Mike Johnson well and encourage everyone to tune in for these last few shows with one of the poker podcasting greats.

“Oh, I couldn’t have played it any better!” said an exasperated Mike after that painful Gulyy hand. Looking back at his long, consistently high-quality career helping create Rounders and the Pokercast, I’d have to say the same thing about that performance, too.

Here’s Mike and Adam

Had a chance recently to interview a couple of dudes with whom I’d guess just about anyone reading this blog is familiar -- Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz of the Two Plus Two Pokercast. The interview is now up over at Betfair Poker, and features the pair talking about what has now become an eight-plus year run at poker podcasting.

I’ve written here many times over the years both about Mike and Adam’s original podcast, “Rounders, the Poker Show” (that ran from April 2005 to December 2007) and the 2+2-based show they’ve been doing since January 2008. A remarkable run not just for podcasting, but for poker, too, where there are very few on the reporting side of things who’ve lasted that long.

In the interview the pair start out talking about how the original “Rounders” show got started, discuss the move to 2+2, and then share some thoughts about memorable moments and guests. The conversation next moved over to consider their contribution to the chronicling the story of poker -- especially online poker -- over the last eight years. I got them to opine a little toward the end about the state of “poker media” (so to speak), too.

Regarding that latter subject, Mike brought up a point about the passion many who get into reporting on poker demonstrate, which he attributed to the fact that the great majority of those who write and report on poker play the game as well. (Such is true of the two of them.)

I think Mike’s right on that count, that is to say, just about everyone who takes a shot at podcasting about poker or writing/reporting on poker in some fashion is at the very least a casual poker player, with many being a lot more serious about the game than that. I also think that among those who end up sticking with poker reporting for a lengthy period the amount of time spent playing the game often begins to wane (something I’ve experienced), but there nonetheless still exists that ability to think about the game from a player’s perspective.

Kind of makes poker different from other sports and/or other subjects of news reporting, if you think about it, in which that overlap between participant and observer isn’t so great.

With most sports, for instance, ex-players frequently become broadcasters or get involved with the media, but they necessarily do so after their playing days are behind them. Poker, meanwhile, doesn’t really feature players “retiring” and then moving over to the media side (except perhaps when it comes to that sort of gradual sliding away from playing to which I was just referring). That is, the line between the two -- player and reporter -- is not just blurry, it’s essentially non-existent.

To build a little further on Mike’s point, when it comes to those few who have reported on poker as long as Mike and Adam have, it’s probably safe to say just about all of them have a special passion for the game that has sustained them. I know that is the case for Mike and Adam, and I think the poker community has a lot to be grateful for when it comes to what those two have contributed to the game over the years.

It was definitely fun to talk to a couple of guys with such enthusiasm for poker, not to mention take a shot at interviewing a couple of the best interviewers in poker (in my opinion). Check out the interview.