Dialing Up Some Poker Podcasts

Was writing a little last week about the Thinking Poker Podcast, which got me thinking once again about poker and podcasts (natch) and which ones have moved up to the front of the queue for me of late.

To be honest I no longer listen to any single one regularly, although the Thinking Poker Podcast is one I tend to catch fairly frequently. It’s a good mix of strategy discussion and “lifestyle”-type discussions prompted by the guests Andrew Brokos and Nate Meyvis have on the show.

While the strategy sessions can be kind of intense (with a single hand occasionally being enough to encourage a half-hour’s worth of discussion or more), I very much like the way the show allows guests to stray over a wide range of topics, with poker being kind of a jumping off point for all sorts of interesting discussions.

The European Poker Tour Prague stop is nearing its conclusion and I’ve been tuning in again to EPT Live as the Main Event is now down to just three tables. That puts me in mind of the EPT Not Live podcast, which comes around about once a week in between EPT events (and during them, too, I think).

I’m a huge fan of James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton and the shows feature them being their usually humorous selves along with an array of guests. This “Best of” episode from near the end of the summer might be a good place to start with the show, if you haven’t heard it before.

Another podcast I find myself listening to almost every week is Todd Witteles’s Poker Fraud Alert. Sometimes I’ll listen live if up late on the night he’s doing a show, while other times I’ll find shows in the arCHives (to which the above link goes). Those of you who’ve listened know how Witteles’s shows are usually made up of lengthy segments in which he responds to various poker and gambling news of the week, as well as other topics of interest to him. He has co-hosts occasionally, although often is on his own for what can become marathon episodes lasting five or more hours.

Witteles is a thoughtful guy and nearly always adopts reasonable positions on various issues of the day. His show also provides something kind of unique in poker as far as its editorial freedom goes. He provides show notes for each episode, so you can skip ahead and find topics of particular interest if you like rather than listening the whole way.

Also on my list of regular listens is the Remko Report over on PokerNews where my friend Remko Rinkema similarly takes his time interviewing guests from the poker world with each show usually taking an hour or so. It has been a few weeks since I’ve listened, but some relatively recent ones I’ve enjoyed have included his interviews with Talal Shakerchi, Martin Jacobson, and Joe McKeehen (a couple of weeks before his victory).

I’ve written here before about Remko’s enthusiasm for poker and how infectious it can be if you spend any time at all around him, something listeners of the show surely pick up on as well, I imagine, via his often inspired questions. You can find the Remko Report among other PokerNews podcasts by clicking here -- I also often enjoy the regular “PN Pod” and this fall have dutifully listened to (and enjoyed) the BookieSmash SuperContest shows as well.

Finally I’ve only lately started tuning into to Joey Ingram’s Poker Life shows, which like Remko’s often are focused around lengthy interviews with a single guest. He does his live over on YouTube, so there’s a video component with the shows, although you can get to ’em via iTunes as well. Most recently he had on both Daniel Negreanu and Dani Stern to discuss the PokerStars VIP changes, one of a few instances of late of the show jumping on a hot and trending poker-related topic to provide something interesting for those following the stories.

I’ll still dial up the Two Plus Two Pokercast now and then, usually depending on whether or not there’s a guest I’m interested in hearing. I mentioned House of Cards here not long ago, too, as one to which I sometimes listen. There are others, too, I’ll happen upon now and then. If you are curious to see what all is out there, PokerFuse keeps track of many poker podcasts as they appear on this page.

You still listen to any poker podcasts? If so, which ones do you like?

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.