Podcast Recommendations: Alan Boston on Thinking Poker & Kara Scott on the Remko Report

Had a chance over the weekend to listen to a couple of poker podcasts which I found very interesting and entertaining, so I wanted to pass them along here.

One was the most recent episode of The Thinking Poker Podcast, co-hosted by Andrew Brokos and Nate Meyvis. I’ve mentioned the TPP show here many times before -- and in fact appeared on that one a couple of times, once very early when they had just started, then again more recently.

Last week they had as a guest the poker player and sports bettor Alan Dvorkis -- better known as Alan Boston. I’ve often enjoyed hearing Boston talk about sports betting on other podcasts, and he’s an entertaining follow on Twitter for sure, especially when expressing misery and/or vitriol regarding bets gone wrong.

Other than exchanging a few tweets with him about Todd Rundgren on Twitter, I haven’t really interacted with Boston that much -- one hilarious exchange at the WSOP from a few years back comes to mind -- but I’ve always found him an interesting, thoughtful guy whenever he’s interviewed.

On the TPP show the interview was divided between some stud strategy talk (including some anecdotes about Danny Robison and Stu Ungar), and discussion of helping others with mental issues (and dealing with one’s own). All pretty engaging and not what you typically hear on poker podcasts.

The other was the latest “Remko Report” on which Remko Rinkema interviewed Kara Scott. Besides being friends with both Remko and Kara, I’m a big fan of both as well. As you might imagine from two people so good at talking and expressing themselves, their conversation is highly enjoyable.

The first half or more of the episode is poker-focused, with some good discussion about various things including the ongoing struggle to introduce poker to larger audiences, some good talk about Joe McKeehen and this whole (overdone) topic of WSOP Main Event champions needing to be “ambassadors” (Kara and I agree they don’t), and some further discussion about how the WSOP Main Event is currently covered and what could be changed.

They also share notes on the challenges of interviewing poker players, something I think both do very well in part because they are both so interested in examining more closely what goes into making a good, engaging interview. (It’s a lot harder than it looks or sounds, as they both are well aware.)

From there they cover some of Kara’s life before becoming a poker presenter. Some of this story I knew before, in part from having interviewed Kara myself several years ago for Betfair Poker. (That’s another one of those interviews that has now disappeared from the internet -- and which I may try to recover and republish here at some point, as I’ve done with some of the other ones.)

I knew about her background as a teacher, something I very much enjoyed talking to her about given how that’s an experience we have in common. I knew a bit about her growing up in Canada and moving to England, as well as her transition from teaching to training in Muay Thai and then becoming a presenter for a martial arts show. Which eventually led (along with some acting gigs on the side) to her getting involved with poker television.

There were other things discussed with which I was less familiar, including some having to do with how getting involved with poker and the poker community helped Kara at a time in her life when such help was really needed. Here the show reminded me a little of Boston’s appearance on TPP, if only for the way both interviewees got across the message of how important it is to have support from others, especially during difficult times.

If you have a couple of hours when you’re driving or cleaning barn stalls or doing something else where you need some interesting audio to fill that noggin’, check out both shows:

Thinking Poker Podcast Episode #186: Alan Boston

Remko Report #45: Kara Scott Opens Up About Her Life Before Poker

Photos: Alan Boston courtesy PokerNews; “Kara Scott at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker 2015,” Dutch Boyd, CC BY 2.0.

Backstory: Norman Chad on the Remko Report

Listening today to the latest “Remko Report” over on PokerNews in which Remko Rinkema has an entertaining and interesting conversation with Norman Chad, the longtime co-host of ESPN’s World Series of Poker broadcasts.

I’m a big fan of both of these guys. I’ve written here before (not too long ago) about how infectious Remko’s enthusiasm can be -- especially when it comes to poker. And Chad, too, has added a great deal to my enjoyment of the game, dating back of course to those first WSOP shows he and Lon McEachern hosted back in 2003 -- shows I vividly remember watching when they first aired and which get discussed at length on the podcast.

The pair cover a lot over the course of the show, including going back to his pre-poker days and start as a sports columnist at The Washington Post in 1984, a move to L.A. and Sports Illustrated in the early 1990s, then a fortuitous first trip to the poker rooms there in 1999.

They eventually come to Chad’s getting recruited by ESPN for that first seven-show series back in 2003, though before that is some interesting talk about Twitch and Twitter, creativity and writing/creating for an audience (and for oneself), different approaches to poker television (e.g., the “reality show” approach vs. the “poker as a sport” one), and the extent to which poker strategy and poker entertainment overlap (and are distinct).

I like hearing Chad’s discussion of the contributions of 441 Productions -- the group who produced ESPN’s WSOP broadcasts from 2003 through 2010 -- and his praise for how smartly they pulled together the shows, creating all of those many compelling stories and characters that hooked us all.

Chad also talks insightfully (and honestly) about the “creative curve” that exists with any endeavor, in his case referring to the challenge of finding ways to remain engaged and productive after 12-plus years of doing the same thing. (As someone who has kept a poker blog as long as I have, that discussion certainly resonated with me.)

There are a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes details shared regarding those early years at ESPN, and it’s funny to hear Chad confess to some initial (and, as it turned out, inaccurate) ideas about what they were up to, in particular his doubts about whether or not the shows would succeed. For example, his reasoning for why he thought Sam Farha would be a better winner than Moneymaker for poker in ’03 is both humorous and entirely understandable.

I’m kind of a sucker for this stuff -- heck, I was writing about looking back at these old WSOPs just last week. If you’re the same way or at all a fan of televised poker, check out the show.