Files Found! Poker Audio from 2004-2006

We still have this desktop PC in use that is probably more than a decade old now. We use it for a few household-related tasks, among them printing documents with the even older printer attached to it (although that is rarely needed in this mostly paperless world). It’s not even online, which in truth has probably helped add to its longevity, being isolated as it is from the scary virus-filled outside world.

As you might imagine, there are some old, old files on there, including some old audio files of poker podcasts from back when podcasts first became a thing. I’ve written about those before here, including recently. In fact it was just in December of last year I shared a screenshot of all the folders on the drive containing those old shows.

I guess I’ve got a little bit of hoarder in me, having continued to keep all those files. The only reason I downloaded them in the first place was because that was typically the method of listening to them then. We weren’t listening to podcasts on our phones quite yet, and so a lot of the time I’d download the show and listen on my computer while playing online.

Anyhow, for a long time I’ve been going back to those directories and to other places on that old PC to look for something else -- something I knew I had downloaded once upon a time, but could never quite put my finger on where it could be.

In 2005, CardPlayer sponsored live audio commentary for that year’s World Series of Poker Main Event final table. I remember listening all night and into the morning, with the sun having risen here on the east coast by the time Joe Hachem finally ousted Steve Dannenmann in a short heads-up battle to win. Shortly after that CardPlayer posted the .mp3s on their site -- one per week, I think -- eventually posting eight files which totaled something like 13.5 hours’ worth of audio. It wasn’t long after that the files were no longer available.

I was positive I had downloaded those files, and I thought I must have them somewhere but just couldn’t figure out where. Finally -- kind of randomly -- I looked in an old external drive last week and there they were, along with some other old poker-related goodies.

Among the other files there were what I believe might even be the entire run of Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio shows (from 2004-2006), a number of Ante Up! episodes from their first couple of years (2005-2006), some episodes of CardPlayer’s The Circuit from early 2006, Phil Gordon’s 2005 WSOP podcasts plus some Poker Edge shows, the old Poker Diagram podcast (anyone remember that one?), and several episodes of Rounders the Poker Show (forerunner to the 2+2 Pokercast) from the summer of 2006.

I think the latter collection of Rounders shows might include the Jamie Gold interview he gave just a couple of days after winning the 2006 WSOP -- the one I believe was later admitted into court as part of Crispin Leyser’s lawsuit against him that was eventually settled out of court in 2007. (I hope so, anyway.)

I grabbed the 2005 WSOP shows, got ‘em loaded on the iPod, and listened to the first 20 minutes today. Phil Hellmuth and Jeff Shulman are hosting, and already within that short introductory section had on Gary Thompson and Howard Greenbaum of Harrah’s, Mike Matusow (who was at that final table and destined to go out in ninth), Howard Stutz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal (then, and still), and Oklahoma Johnny Hale.

I remember lots of other guests coming and going throughout the marathon, including Puggy Pearson who would pass away the following spring. I found myself wanting to jot down some notes as I listened, thinking perhaps I’ll share some highlights here once I get through it all.

What a time that was, and it’s hard to believe it’s now over a decade ago. A time when I couldn’t get enough poker -- I’d listen, watch, or read anything. You too, probably.

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.

What the Winner Said

I might have mentioned here before how I’d covered new World Series of Poker Main Event champion Ryan Riess in a couple of WSOP Circuit events during the 2012-13 season.

He had a big score early in the season at an event I did not cover, the WSOP-C Horseshoe Hammond Main Event in October 2012 where he won nearly $240,000 for finishing runner-up. He then traveled to many subsequent WSOP-C stops, earning a number of small cashes leading up to the WSOP this summer.

I believe it was at the Harrah’s Cherokee stop where I first began to notice him, mainly because he’d come over to chat with Rich and myself during breaks a couple of times. He struck me as a friendly guy and from what I could tell a decent player -- i.e., at a table full of non-pros in that Cherokee ME, he was stood out as perhaps a little more comfortable and seasoned as a player.

Thus when the WSOP Main Event reached its fifth day or so during the summer and I saw Riess still among the field, I wasn’t too surprised having known a little of him before. I also wasn’t surprised when he made it to Day 7, then battled with a short stack before finally accumulating some chips to take to the final table.

I watched the coverage this week and like everyone else saw that ESPN profile in which Riess spoke of himself as being the best player among the final nine. And of course I saw the short interview with Kara Scott after his win in which Riess responded to her question about his confidence going in by proclaiming “I just think I’m the best player in the world.”

Was kind of funny to hear, especially since I’d already formulated that image of Riess that didn’t really fit with such boastfulness. Of course, my image of him was based on incredibly slight information, and thinking back I found myself tempted to reinterpret his giving us updates on his chip counts at Cherokee. Sure, he was friendly and likable, but was he also self-promoting some, too? (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

I also followed what struck me as a kind of crazed reaction on Twitter to Riess’s bold self-assessment, something Rich wrote a little about in his “Five Thoughts” piece this week. The forums -- where every new WSOP Main Event winner is necessarily a loser until proven innocent -- have likewise predictably taken the statement and run wildly with it.

Riess appeared on Fox News yesterday morning and did well fielding some artless questions from Shepard Smith who was more nitwit than wit during the short segment. Smith asked Riess about the statement, in fact, and Riess explained a little how it hadn’t been an off-the-cuff remark, but an idea he’d been articulating for several months.

“Yeah, I said that before this tournament started,” replied Riess. “I started saying it in March and I was practicing for this tournament and it worked out. I proved myself.”

Shepard continued with jokes about putting it all on black and so on. Shepard even had a heads-up game queued on his monitor to play with Riess, but he screwed that up to add a little more awkwardness to it all. Finally Shepard signed off with a cynical-sounding “Congratulations on your big money and on being the greatest player in the history of the world,” and a smiling Riess thanked him.

The last player to win a WSOP Main Event and then afterwards even entertain the subject of being the “best player in the world” was Jamie Gold, of course, who even before he won the Main Event back in 2006 was appearing on CardPlayer’s The Circuit podcast as the chip leader talking excitedly about how great he was. I remember Gold telling Scott Huff and Joe Sebok how he had accumulated so many chips that he -- all by himself -- was making the tournament go faster than it was supposed to, thus causing tournament staff great consternation as they tried to adjust the schedule to handle it all. (Anyone else remember that?)

Then Gold won and afterwards continued with similar statements about his greatness on an appearance on Rounders, the Poker Show (precursor to the Two Plus Two Pokercast) and elsewhere.

One of the active stories at the time of Gold’s win was the whole “ambassador of poker” mantle given to the WSOP Main Event winner, with the Moneymaker-Raymer-Hachem triumvirate having established a lot of expectation in that regard. Gold, meanwhile, was talking during the WSOP Main Event about how he wasn’t interested in serving such a role, something I wrote about here way back in 2006 the day after he won in a post called “Assessing the Gold Standard.”

Then came the legal squabbles and other ugliness regarding his deal with Crispin Leyser and other missteps, with Gold more or less removing himself from consideration as an “ambassador” in the eyes of many, deservedly or not. In truth I always thought Gold really did give at least some effort toward promoting the game in those couple of years after his win, not that he had to. See this post about Gold, “Starting Again,” I wrote during the 2008 WSOP for more on that thought.

Don’t really see Riess as following Gold’s path, though. The whole “poker ambassador” thing has changed a lot over these last several years -- the change starting, really, with Gold’s win -- and I don’t think the poker community looks to the WSOP Main Event winner as having as much of an obligation in that regard as once was the case.

So I’m not really thinking too much about Riess being a representative of the game going forward. Nor am I bothered that much at all by a poker player exuding confidence, particularly after having experienced some success at the tables. As I more less tend to do with all of those who win the WSOP Main Event, I’m pulling for Riess to handle it all as well as he can going forward, and I’m pulling for poker to do well, too, although I don’t necessarily think those two things are that closely related so much anymore.

Meanwhile, kind of funny to think about Riess doing a Muhammad Ali after his win, yea? I mean he’s given us all something to talk about, that’s for sure.

Poker Podcast Review: Full Tilt Poker's Tips from the Pros, Episode 5 -- Your Online Poker Bankroll feat. Howard Lederer

I see the Two Plus Two Pokercast guys have conducted their interview with poker’s most interviewed subject of late, Howard Lederer. They posted the show just a few moments ago, actually. Four hours long, this one.

As I was saying a few days back, I’ll certainly be listening in, even though I have a feeling that while there may be some new nuggets, there will be a lot that will be similar to what we heard last week in the PokerNews interview -- i.e., deflecting blame, rationalizing inexcusable decisions, selectively forgetting unflattering details, and the like.

Before I listen, though, I wanted to share one little find I had while sorting through some old files, something that kind of relates both to the Two Plus Two Pokercast and to Lederer.

When I started the blog way back in 2006, I was inspired to do so by a few different factors, one of which was the poker podcasts I had begun listening to just a few months before. In particular it was the Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio podcast on which the subject of poker blogs occasionally arose that got me thinking of trying something similar.

Among those early podcasts was Rounders, the Poker Show, the one hosted by Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz who later on would move over to host the consistently excellent 2+2 show. Those early Rounders shows were good, too, many of which focused on one lengthy interview with a poker personality. Indeed, given their track record and experience with interviewing, I do look forward to hearing how Johnson and Schwartz handled the interview with Lederer (and am inclined to guess they likely did well).

Anyhow, just yesterday I happened to be searching for some old music files among a stack of CDs and DVDs and noticed I had a few on which there were folders labeled “Poker Podcasts.” During those early days of listening to podcasts I’d save them onto the computer before listening, and for some reason I was compelled to back those files up along with everything else.

Looking through those folders I am seeing a bunch of old episodes of Rounders, the Poker Show as well as Card Club, Poker Diagram, The Circuit (from back when it first appeared on the CardPlayer site), Ante Up!, The Poker Edge (with Phil Gordon), and some other obscure ones like California Poker Radio, NetBettor, and so on.

Also tucked in there are some old files labeled “Full Tilt Poker” which upon closer inspection turn out to be episodes of a kind of half-hearted attempt at podcasting by the FTP crew. The shows were all just a few minutes long and featured members of Team Full Tilt being interviewed by a host (who doesn’t identify himself) to talk about various strategy tips -- e.g., how to play ace-king, slow-playing, heads-up play, and so on. I think most were recorded either late 2005 or early 2006.

One of those I found featured Lederer, of course. The topic? Bankroll management. I had to listen.

“The number one consideration when it comes to bankroll management is working on your game and making sure you have the best of it,” Lederer begins. “If you don’t have the best of it, no bankroll management system is going to help you win.”

It’s an obvious point, of course, that if you aren’t a winning player then you can’t possibly come up with a scheme to prevent your bankroll from dwindling rather than growing. Lederer follows that with a few other guidelines regarding how much you need to have in your account in order to play different games comfortably (e.g., SNGs, limit games, no-limit).

Lederer then gets into other standard stuff about how, say, if you are a limit hold’em player you want to have a certain number of big bets in order to avoid going broke (Lederer says 500 big bets per table). He goes on to recommend “limits per session” (i.e., “stop-loss” limits) and the need to walk away once you’ve lost a certain amount.

“Poker’s going to be there, you know, Full Tilt Poker’s going to be open,” he says with a laugh. “There’s always going to be a game.”

The discussion then moves on to address the importance of tracking one’s play and keeping good records. “Being a good poker player takes a lot of self-honesty,” says Lederer. “Keep accurate records of how you do... those records won’t lie,” he adds. And for players who are losing overall, a check of the ledger can be especially helpful. Says Lederer, “you need to be objective, you need to be self-critical, you need to figure out what you’re doing wrong, and you need to fix it.”

I know, I know... it’s an easy target. Still, pretty funny hearing all of this advice about how to avoid risk of ruin coming from one of those involved with losing track of hundreds of millions of dollars. By the way, there’s another episode featuring Chris Ferguson also on the topic of bankroll management advice (talking about the “The Chris Ferguson Challenge.”)

(I’d point you to the shows on the web, but am having trouble finding them anywhere anymore.)

Will be thinking of all of these tips, then -- about the need to keep accurate records, about the value of setting limits for oneself, about the importance of self-honesty and figuring out what’s one is doing wrong -- when listening to Lederer’s 2+2 interview.

Crashing the Two Plus Two Pokercast

Should have posted this earlier in the week... I appeared on the latest episode of the Two Plus Two Pokercast with Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz (episode 173, 5/24/11). I turn up during the first part of the show -- about 20 minutes after it begins -- and stick around for about 20 minutes afterwards.

Got a big kick out of being on the show. As the three of us discussed briefly right at the start of our conversation, I’ve been listening to Mike & Adam for a long, long time. I first picked up their old podcast, “Rounders, the Poker Show,” way back in late 2005 or early 2006, not too long after they started the sucker, actually. That was a time when the poker podcast landscape was relatively barren, with Lord Admiral on Card Club Radio and Ante Up! pretty much the only other weekly shows around.

I remember writing a little something here when they made the move over to 2+2 at the start of 2008. In that post I wondered a little about whether the move would affect the show in any significant way, concluding that I didn’t think it really would. If anything the show has gotten better and better over the last three years, expanding in both length and breadth of coverage. (I’m guessing those of you who remember the old “Rounders” show will probably agree.)

The guys have always been very good with interviews, I’ve thought, and they asked some good questions of me. We started out talking about the eighth anniversary of Chris Moneymaker’s triumph in the 2003 WSOP Main Event -- the subject of my Monday post -- then moved on to discuss the upcoming WSOP as well as the experience of having reporting on the Series over the past few years.

Anyhow, if you’re curious do check it out. And if you somehow don’t already listen to the 2+2 Pokercast, let me recommend it as a definite “must-listen” when it comes to poker podcasts.

Poker Podcast Line-Up (Part II, 1-5)

Okay, single file . . . everyone line up against the far wall there. What follows are my top five poker podcasts (6-10 appeared in my previous post). I should note that there are other podcasts out there, of course, that I've yet to hear. Also, my preferences are dictated (predictably) by my own interest in small stakes games, so someone with other interests may have different favorites. In any event, here goes:

1. Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio
The longest-running poker podcast is also the best, in my opinion. Card Club began in November 2004 as a weekly podcast devoted to chronicling the adventures of a private poker club in Toronto. Soon the show expanded to include reports from Vegas, book reviews, listener contributions, and more, growing from a 25-30 minute show to what now generally approaches a hour’s worth of quality listening. The hosts, “Cincinnati” Sean and Brent Stacks, are smart, witty students of poker who (too) modestly describe themselves as low-limit hacks. They occasionally invite other members of Lord Admiral for “roundtable” discussions about hands or other poker-related topics. Last summer a listener, Ray or “Columbo” (of pokerwannabe.blogspot.com), began contributing his own “Columbo’s One-Minute Mysteries.” Each mystery features Columbo puzzling over a particular crisis point in a poker hand, at which time he invites the listener to consider “What would you do?” The Lord Admirals ponder their responses, then we get to hear a second, concluding part (either during the same show or the following week). The OMM’s are smartly constructed and made more humorous by the clever insertion of Peter Falk soundbites into each mystery. (They begin around episode 40 -- check ’em out.) That a listener has now become part of the regular program this way highlights one of the show’s greatest strengths -- its inclusiveness. “Cincy” Sean often repeats his desire for the show to participate in and help foster a larger “community” of poker players, a kind of common ground where small stakes players can meet and share ideas and experiences. The show entirely succeeds in realizing this purpose. I recall a “roundtable” from an early episode when the club discussed a Hold ’em hand that had been emailed in by a listener. As the discussion began, Sean mentioned that the hand came from a $0.50/$1.00 limit game, but quickly added that the stakes weren’t as important as the listener’s question about his play. Short-stacked players like myself appreciate such disclaimers. Many of us will never rise much further than the lower limits. For us poker will probably always be a much-valued recreational activity (and not a full-time profession). If you fall into this category of player, a show like Card Club will add significantly to your enjoyment of the game. Perhaps begin with the later shows, but do work your way back as the earlier ones -- even the first dozen -- remain good listening. Rating: a pair of aces; always play

2. Ante Up!
This Florida-based weekly podcast started approximately one year ago with hosts Christopher Cosenza (an editor at Tampa Bay Times) and Scott Long (an editor at the St. Petersburg Times also who writes a column called "Bet On It" for the TBT) having conversations about poker of modest length (15-20 minutes) and unexceptional depth. The early episodes are all fine, but none are terribly impressive. However, after 20 weeks or so the pair really began to hit their stride and shows became lengthier and much more engaging. The occasional appearance of avuncular Mike Fasso (a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times) also adds a lot to the proceedings. Cosenza and Long play all games at lower limits (online and live) and thus much of what they have to say is relevant and enjoyable to small stakes grinders such as myself. Episodes are organized around a particular topic or theme (e.g., “Pot Odds,” “First time in a casino,” “Check raising,” “Poker Books We’re Reading”). They’ve also devoted shows to games other than Hold ’em (Omaha, 7-Card Stud, Razz). Pick it up around the 20th episode or so and enjoy. Rating: ace-king suited; play often, particularly from late position

3. CardPlayer’s The Circuit
Last December CardPlayer magazine began producing these podcasts at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic, essentially daily reports from the event though augmented considerably by interviews and strategy discussions. Since then, CardPlayer has continued to produce four or five lengthy (usually around an hour-long) episodes from each major circuit event. The show was originally co-hosted by Scott Huff (an amateur player) and Mike “the Mouth” Matusow, and the earliest episodes (from the Five Diamond, the Caribbean Poker Adventure, and the Gold Strike World Poker Open) feature several moments where Huff successfully tames Matusow into an entertaining and informative contributor. Things deterioriate a bit after that, with Matusow frequently coming on and complaining endlessly about his misfortune at whatever tournament they happen to be covering, his self-loathing and/or whining often obscuring interviews with guests. (Even Huff’s attempts to toss the Mouth into “Radio Jail” -- i.e., turning off his mic -- seem not to have worked.) Matusow has now apparently moved on, with pros Joe Sebok and Gavin Smith having assumed co-hosting duties with Huff. This trio interacts very effectively -- all three are smart and articulate about poker and at times can be funny as hell. Huff’s perspective probably matches that of most of the show’s listeners (a low-limit grinder with more online than brick-and-mortar experience), and thus provides a nice way of interacting with Sebok, Smith, and the pros who come on the show. Huff frequently asks questions you or I would want asked (about strategy, moving up limits, bankroll considerations, etc.). The show can also be very entertaining. For some humor highlights, check out the episode featuring Steve Dannenman and the “New Cut Crew” from the WPT Winter Open, the one featuring Phil “I can dodge bullets baby” Hellmuth from the Five-Star World Poker Classic, or the one with Haralabos Voulgaris at the Mirage (which I’ve mentioned before). Great stuff. Rating: ace-king offsuit; plenty of reasons to play

4. Rounders, the Poker Show
Rounders is a Canadian podcast that’s associated with an AM station out of Vancouver. The hosts Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz are both smart and engaging, although their sometimes-overly-rapid delivery (esp. Johnson’s) is a clear tell that you’re listening to sports radio. The weekly, 45-minute show focuses primarily on the pros, with nearly all the top names having been interviewed at some point during the thirteen months or so it has been produced. There’s also a good deal of discussion about what’s happening in Vegas. So while you may now and then hear some strategy talk, the podcast is generally geared in other directions. The hosts are players as well, with Schwartz playing in some of the bigger money games and Johnson playing lower limits and online tourneys. So they will occasionally relate their own experiences, and since they are both good talkers the discussions are generally fairly compelling. The show is well-produced and always sounds great, and a lot of the older interviews are not so time-bound as to be less interesting today. If you’re interested in particular personalities, go through the archives and find their interviews among the 50+ episodes produced thus far. (Unlike some of the interviewers at the bottom of the list, these two do a fine job letting the guests speak their minds.) Rating: ace-queen offsuit; mostly play but can be let go now and then

5. Phil Gordon’s 2005 WSOP podcasts
Last summer professional player and former co-host of Celebrity Poker Showdown Phil Gordon produced one of the more popular poker podcasts of the year during the World Series of Poker. From June 3rd to July 17th, he posted podcasts on an almost daily basis detailing his experiences playing multiple events at the WSOP. During breaks Gordon would record brief rundowns of how he had fared during the previous level, often narrating interesting hands or other notable events that had occurred. He’d also usually interview at least one other pro per episode (they run from 5-10 minutes up to a half hour or more). In the end, every episode includes something of interest, including genuinely helpful tournament strategy tips (from himself and from others). Gordon is a pretty likable guy who’s clearly knowledgable about poker. He also can be pretty damn funny at times, too. I found these sometime late last summer and had listened to all 29 of them within a couple of weeks. I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping he does something similar again this year. Rating: pocket jacks; a favorite over most of the field

Okay, move it on out. You've seen 'em all . . . now, check 'em out yer selves and tell me what you think.

Images: Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio, Ante Up!, CardPlayer’s The Circuit, Rounders, the Poker Show, Expert Insight (Phil Gordon).