One. Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donnie Peters. His name across the table from me is Timothy Duckworth. How are you, buddy. I'm doing great. That's good. I'm glad you're doing great. I'm doing pretty well myself. Thanks for asking, even though you didn't ask because you don't care about me. You're selfish. But yeah, you didn't even want to press the record button today. Let's um, so, don't make me throw you under the bush. Okay, I won't, I won't do it, but you can't. I'm just really saying, don't you know, don't don't. Don't push me, man, don't push me. Um. Today on the episode of the Poker g Podcast, we're gonna talk about Airball and Burkey because they completed their match short of one hundred hours, but they completed it, and we'll get into all of that. There was another round of High Stakes Duel. High Stakes Duel returned. There was also a special undercard match. For the first time ever, WPT Choctaw reached a final table. In the recent days. We'll hit on that, probably touch on the event before that, WPT Seminal, because they do have something very important in common with one another, Maybe a family pot, maybe not. I don't really know. I'm sure Tim has something He's talking about gardens and flowers earlier. I don't really know what the heck is going on. But yeah, of course, as always, gotta give a shout out to the giveaway contest that we are running. This one's a special one because we are giving away a signed and framed High Stakes Poker Special Edition live stream Felt signed by Matt Burkey, Nick Earwall, Doug Polk, Eric person for Tilly Lynjy, Rob Young, Nick Schulman, and Brent Hanks. The first group of those all played in the episode than Nick Schulman and Brent Hanks were the commentators for that live stream. We will do We will do the drawing on the next episode of the podcast, likely next week. It is Wednesday, May tenth, so likely next week sometime when we record, we will do the drawing again. To enter yourself into the giveaway, leave a review. Prefer everyone on Apple Podcast, but you can do so wherever the heck you want. Take a screenshot of that review, send it on into podcasts at poker go dot com, and then you will be entered into the giveaway. Let's Go. This episode of the Poker Go podcast is brought to you by our very good friends over at gto Wizard. With gto Wizard, you can take your game to the next level through a variety of state of the art tools and strategy content, browse solutions, sharpen your skills by practicing all kinds of different scenarios a GTEO opponents, analyze your hand histories, and much much more. Gto Wizard is the number one app for poker players. I use it. Hopefully Tim has started u seeing it because his hand histories are a disaster. Visit gto wizard dot com slash poker go to receive free access for your first twenty four hours as well as ten percent off your first purchase. They have tournaments on there, they have cash game stuff, so whatever kind of field you're in, I'm in the tournament streets currently these days, much more so than I'm in the cash game streets. So that's where my focus in. But if you're a cash game person, you can certainly get a hold of their their cash game content, their cash game tools, and look to improve your game in that regard. Again, that's gto wizard dot com slash poker go check it out and check it out today community cards, no intro, but just to mention south Point Nightly Takeover. That's what Tim and I are going to be doing. Am I correct in saying that Jeff platolus he's going to be there? Is that what that take? Yes, he said he would like to be there. It was just kind of out of the blue, so I was confused. He was obviously listening to the podcast. Yeah, a couple of days late, but you know, it's busy man. He's been traveling. He was down in Florida, then he was up in Reno. I mean, the guys all over the places. Globetrotter for sure, he's a star. So the south Point Nightly Takeover coming up Wednesday, May thirty. First, they have one hundred and fifty dollars deep stack fifteen thousand dollars guaranteed prize Pool Nightly Tournament that day. It starts at six pm. Tim and I are going to be going to be there playing. Um. Sounds like Jeff Platt might be joining us pending other things work out. We'll try and wrangle some other people from the Poker Grow family. But of course, most importantly, we really want anyone that's out here in town, from the Poker Grow podcast family, the extended family, the audience, the listeners come out there and join us. We'll have some fun with it, maybe give away some swag, have some other prizes. Who the heck knows. Maybe maybe Tim and I will put a bounty on our heads. It has to be like a bounty where like if there's a password, like when you bust us, because I'm not just giving the bounty to like Nancy and seat three when she busts me, and she's like a regular south Point person has no idea about the Hopefully they all turn up on time you have a little meet and greet, you know, I go from there. I mean, Who's Who's who? Sure? I mean I'm kind of in for that. I like it all right, let's uh get again, well just quickly on the date Wednesday, May thirty, first last day of the May. So get in there and come play with us over as he Point m News and happenings. So when when when did this happen? A couple days ago? Last week? I can't remember exactly when it took place, but Nick Airball he called it quits against Matt Burkey. So obviously the heads up match that has basically taken the poker world by storm over the recent weeks. Nick Airball called out Matt Burkey, had some choice words to say about him. Um I think he called him a scumbag or a scammer or something like that, one of those s words. At one point, they end up playing two hundred four hundred heads up noelamant hold them. They played it over at Resorts World. It wasn't streamed. There was some updates on social media, landon Tice brown Ball or some of those guys were out there giving you updates. Matt Burkey was covering it on the Only Friends podcast on a regular basis. He would talk about what happened in the match, you know, various hands what not. Doug Polk was kind of working with Matt or sorry, not with Matt Burkey. Definitely not with Matt Burkey. Doug Bolk was kind of working with Nick Airball. Nick Airball being newer to heads up poker, and he was also doing some stuff out there on the hands that were played. So despite it not being streamed or like live apporting or anything like that. Still got a lot of coverage overall. So Airball he called it quits after just fifty eight hours of play. They had planned to play one hundred hours of two hundred four hundred heads up. Noelmant hold them. They played fifty eight hours. Airball was down more than a million dollars. I think it was like one million, twenty nine thousand, seven hundred I think was the exact figure. Um, Airball just calls it quits. The people. They had a clause that if he got to a million, you could quit, and you could quit. Yeah, so I mean he called the quits. Yeah, he didn't. He's not like, you know, I'm gonna try and fight back, cut my losses over these next you know, forty two hours. Nope, I'm just calling it. Matt Burkey's clearly better than me, and that's that. Um. You know. Matt Burkey, he kind of went over like the last situation on a recent podcast episode of his, and he was talking about how when they first started, Um, they went into the match, I think I think air Ball was right around three hundred and thirty thousand dollars away from the million, and that's what he put into play that day. So Burkey kind of got the sense right away, is like, okay, this is kind of like the case money. If he loses this in front of him, it's likely gonna be game over. That's ended up. What happened the final hand where Burke stacked Airball. I think it was set over set tens versus threes, disgusting. I believe the board was nine eight three, and then the turn was a ten. They get all the money in. Obviously Airball doesn't hit the case three on the river, and that is that now. I mean, first of all, before we get into the nick Airball releasing a statement, I mean, what are your kind of your takeaways from the match? Overall? I wanted blood, and I think we got blood. I mean, we got seven figures of blood. What else do you one? You know, I started with I really wanted Airball to win, and then I slowly came around to the other side, so I was actually surprised it ended in whatever it was fifty hours. But hey, now we can move on and find something else controversial to talk about. I guess, yeah, I mean, I guess so. I the troll side of me was like, it'd be cool or not cool, it would be funny if air Ball won. You know, the troll side in me, the poker player, poker enthusiast, poker, die hard poker, trust, whatever you want to call it inside of me said, I want Matt Burkey to win. So, you know, I could kind of see both sides of it. I believe I said before that I kind of want what's best for headlines. Overall, I think it's still played out as it was really good for headlines. I think a seven figure loss of more than a million dollars, I think Airball calling it quits early. Now. I know they did have that clause in there that allowed him to call it quits, but still, you know, he did call it quits earlier than expected on one hundred hour match, losing him more than a million dollars. I mean, I don't I feel like we got pretty much all that we could ask for from this. Yeah, overall, I mean that's kind of how I feel I thought it was. You know, Burkey was the better player in this matchup for sure. You know. And Burkey, you know, he's talked about it several times on his own podcast. He's not a heads up player by any means. That said, I think he has a lot more experience in the high stakes streets, probably in some probably in some shorthanded, maybe some heads up scenarios. When you get you know, you're playing these games, the games get shorterhanded, whatever it. Maybe he's probably the better poker player overall, which I think Airball alluded to in his statement afterwards. So I'll just get into it now. In the statement, so first of all, Burkey beats Airball, Airball calls it quits. Airball basically says on Twitter like, you know, hey, I'm down one million, twenty nine thousand, whatever, I'll release a statement in a couple of days, that sort of thing. Burkey said on his podcast that Airball like extended his hand after the match, they shook hands and you know, went their own ways. And then now yesterday it's Wednesday, May ten, So on Tuesday May ninth is when Airball released a statement on Twitter. He said, first of all, I want to congratulate Matt Burkey on his victory. There was a lot of shit talking, most of it for fun and to add to the excitement of the match. But in the end, I have to give credit where credit is due. He played well, and he played better than I expected he would. He won fair and square, and he deserves to celebrate his win. What do you just quickly, what do you think his celebration is going to be like some protein shakes, some chicken bread. I don't think Burgie's going to be heading off to the club and popping bottles, although that would be a fun little twist in this whole thing. Yes, all right, back to the statement. I want to apologize for the comments I made about Matt being a scammer and the negative comments I made about his business that was out of line, and I regret making those contents. Got caught up emotionally in the heat of the moment and said some things I shouldn't have, and for that I apologize. Matt showed during this match that he is a true professional. I have a lot to learn as a poker player. I have a newfound respect for heads up poker. I didn't have any experience and heads up, but I learned a lot while studying and playing this match, and I have a lot more to learn. My experience is in live ring games, and that's where I feel most comfortable and have the most fun. I also have a lot to learn as a person and a public finger in the poker industry. My close friends know the type of person I really am in the character I have, but in poker, I enjoy being an exuberant, polarizing character. I believe that poker needs characters, but sometimes I go too far with it, and that's something I need to work on. I'm never going to change how I really am. Fun, loud, social, sometimes obnoxious, but I can work on being a better and not making comments that can be hurtful. In the end, I just want to have fun and play some poker. Thanks to everyone who supported me throughout this match. It was a fun journey, even though I fell short, even to the haters, I appreciate all of you as well. Great statement, I mean, very good statement from him. Seems like he's possibly turning a new leaf. Kind of recognizes that he looked like you idioted at many points throughout this saga that was happening, you know, whether it was the scam or comments, whether it was the cons shit talking as he says, you know, the I mean the bathroom breaks like that sort of like funny, weird stuff. Then you get him on High Stakes Poker, the live stream, he's he starts off like it kind of looks like it's gonna get crazy, then it dies down. Then it's like the whole hymn and LNJI like laughing at everything fast. Then it turns into Airball just getting absolutely hammered off wine and then just going nuts in that last hand verse gentility, which you know, it seems like Airball kind of just like took a look in the mirror. And also, like I think the sentiment from the community, I think going into the whole thing with Burkey and air Ball and throughout the early stages of it, there was very much two camps. You were either for Airball or you were for Burkeyan and Tim and I have talked a few different times about like, well, you know why you might be on either side. I think the high stakes Poker live stream really pushed more people towards Burkey because Airball was like on full display for many hours being Airball. People were exposed to that and they said, you know what, I don't like this guy. He's the villain, He's the heel. Burkie is the hero, right, And I think that's how it kind of played out. I think as a result of that, you know, and as Airball laid out in this statement, he doesn't really want to be that type of person in poker. Yeah, he might recognize, as he said that that poker does need its characters. I think Tim and I would be the first to tell you that poker needs its characters. But it doesn't sound like Airball wants to be at least as much of the bad character as he portrayed himself. So we'll see where he goes from here. We'll see how much of this statement is truthful going forward. You know, the statement looks great on paper, it reads super well. You know, it's getting a lot of love, all that sort of stuff. But at least me personally, I'm a firm believer of actions speak louder than words. So we're just gonna have to see how he plays out. I guess a recent example that I could point to in terms of like what I'm kind of getting at is there was a Twitter spaces recently where Doug Polk was on there kind of like holding his own feet to the fire and taking you know, questions and commentary from the mob, so to speak. He got into it with Daniel m'granny. They talked through a lot of their problems. Doug like basically broke down in a way talking about how he was bullied young and coming up. But then once him and Daniel got off, and like Matt Burkey got on, said some comments, and some other people got on. Phil Galfon later on, Phil Golfin obviously wrote the piece about Doug. Doug seemed to kind of revert back to like the old Doug. So like, are we gonna see Nick Airball revert back? I don't know. For now, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that this statement is a very good statement, and it looks like he's going to turn a new leaf. It'll be interesting also to listen to the Only Friends podcast see what Burkey has to say. I haven't listened to the recent I've been away, but what he has to say kind of in regards to this statement. But he did allude to on previous episodes that, um, you know, Airball seems not totally off the wall all the time. He was kind of, you know, playing a character in a lot of ways. So so we'll see we're going forward. But um, yeah, it does sound like like Aerall wants to like be around high stakes poker. He wants to be in at all, um, not high Stakes Poker the show, but high stakes poker, like the community. He wants to play on Hustler high Stakes Poker, other shows around the industry. You know, he wants to get those invites, um, which I think he will. But if he would have kept going down the road that he kept going down, maybe some people were like, I don't know about that guy. You know, I don't know so much anymore. Um. So yeah, that's kind of my long takeaway from from the statement part of things. You got anything to add there? No, I think he na owed everything that I think we'll still say a little bit of a Nick Airbell bully kind of passing out. I mean, he can be like loud and yeah and borderline ob noxious at the table, but he got kind of crazy when he started drinking at high Stakes Poker, I want to say, and you can probably correct me here or you know if I'm wrong, but he got really drunk on like a Hustler Casino Live episode a couple of weeks ago, and like I think afterwards he was like might have tweeted something about how like I don't even know who I was last night, like that sort of thing. Like so you know, he's gotten a bit wild before, right, and I think it happens when you stopped pummeling them a lot, well, you know, yeah, of course, I mean, I'm sure it was good Merlau or you know, cabernet or whatever the heck he was drinking. But yeah, but anyway, it seems like it ties a bow on the on the air Ball Burkey stuff for now again. Air Ball loses over one million dollars to Matt Burkey, who, as we said, is going to be you know, celebrating with probably some protein chicks and chicken breasts over problem champagne bottles. He did say on the Only Friends podcasts that Aboll tweeted at He's not but he lost. Matt confirmed that they both paid basically eleven thousand dollars in reik and then the other bit of other portion, whether it was somebody twenty four thousand was what Nick spent on massages, because he basically got massage just like you would, yes, exactly, like just like you would when you when you would play um. All right, so that's that high stakes duel four, so kind of a two parter here because we had the undercard that took place on Friday, May fifth. That was Mike Madisow versus Shawn deep Um, a one time match winner take all ten thousand dollars apiece. Going into it, I think Shaun d was the favorite. I think rightfully so, but the Mouth beat him. Mike did not expect that at all. Shaun Dy was up early and it looked like, okay, this is gonna play out kind of how we thought the better player is gonna win. Um, Madisow seemed a bit more of like a subdued Madisow. If you're tuning into poker these days, not only just this high stakes film match, but like poker as a whole, and you're expecting to see Mike the mouth of old, I don't. You're not gonna get that anymore. You know you're gonna get him. It's different Mike Madisow. Um, you know, I thought, okay, you know, Sean Deeves got him about two to one. I think he's gonna run away with this thing. Next thing, you know, Mike Madisow flips the scrib he's got Deep two to one, ends up closing out the match. Um, you know, he was very like, you know, Sean, you played great. You know all this sort of stuff. Maybe we'll run it back, etc. We're both too nice to each other, that's the way. Yeah, I mean, it's it's funny because you got you got a contrast of you got the whole airball Burkey thing, the whole Burkey Doug Polk thing happening kind of like over here on the left, and then over here on the right. You got what is supposed to be like a heads up mano imano battle and they're just being friendly. Yeah, you know, so, I mean it's kind of hard, but I hope people enjoyed it. You know, it's fun to to have those sort of matches out there. Um you know a little bit of a differing content offering, um, you know than a than a live ring game or you know a live tournament final table or something like that. Um so yeah, so Mike Madisow pocketed the twenty k, hopped on a scooter and got a body here, and that was both said they would like to play again. Yeah, so let's go, guys. Maybe we up the stakes a little bit double down. I don't know. I mean, this is it's like an unofficial high stakes tool, so I don't I don't know if it would have to fall under that they could actually, they could do whatever they want. I feel like for the first time in high stakes duel history, except for I guess helme with no Grander, these two could play, you know, a variety of different games. Since it is an undica, we don't need to go too crazy, but you know, we could do a PLO one. We could do it. I'm definitely not gonna be out there for like seven cards stud high Stakes tool man. You can cover that all you want. I'm sure the production team will rip your head off for it. Um. So this was the little appetizer for High Stakes Tool four. High Stakes Tool four saw Daniel mcgran new against Eric Person Round one, fifty thousand dollars each. First or winner takes home one hundred thousand dollars. Daniel Legrandew basically cooked him. I mean Daniel I thought played better. Daniel had the better hands, you know. Finally, after a few different tries in the high Stakes Duel ring, Daniel was able to get a victory come out on top. And so before we get into you know, going forward and what happens with High Stakes Duel four, let's play the winner's interview with Daniel Legranu. I spoke with him after he won, after he took the crazy body suit off, you know, put the middle fingers away, all of all of that sort of stuff. All right, Daniel Legron, you it's about time you got one of these high stakes dual wins. How you're feeling it? Relieved more than anything. You know. We got an all in and I had Ace King and he ate Ace Queen suit and I'm like, all right, this is a flip. It's a flip. Let's see if I can hold, you know, and you know the turn, I was like, okay, chop, but no, I mean I just had all the hands right. It was like I had so many big hands, and he never really had much going on. He bluffed me a few times. I didn't really do anything special. I don't think, you know, I just ran better than he did. Any sort of preparation coming into this match, playing Eric for the first time, very little, Like I wasn't worried about like any sort of game theory anything like that. I watched some of the streams, some of his highlights and his table talk and stuff like that, and he really does a good job of balancing. Like he'll say things that you would say if you're bluffing when he has you know, he reverses it a lot, so you can't read too much into it, although you know, once in a while I was like, I sort of feel felt it. But the other thing issue too with when people do table talk. When you play with a shot clock, you don't have a lot of time to process. It's kind of have to make your decision. If I have like three minutes, sometimes I'll probably get to the bottom of it, but I don't know. I felt some time pressure a few times in that regard, which is fine. You know, it's better to have that than not. Yeah, I wanted to ask you specifically about kind of playing someone like Eric who's a little bit more willing to be out there character wise, and then you're someone who's, you know, throughout your whole career really been like I can really read people and that sort of thing. So did that play into today's match at all? Or I tell you what I feel like if I didn't do a lot of work. If I did a lot more work, I feel like I would have I'd be like a lot more zoned into some of the stuff that he does. But I really didn't spend a lot of that time. It was sort of a last minute, not last minute. I've had time to do it, but I've been busy doing other stuff. I've been you know, watching hockey and sports, and I've been on Twitter spaces eight hours a night, you know. So yeah, and then uh, you brought some props and a costume. Yeah, what was the idea behind that? I thought it was fun? Right, So this thing like, for me, it's like about the fun. Obviously, fifty thousand dollars doesn't mean anything to him and it's not going to change my life. So I'm trying to, you know, create some entertainment. I thought, like HARKing back to when I, you know, dressed up like Scotty Wynn, I thought, you know, he's got a unique look, you know. I was like, all right, let's have some fun with it, all good natured fun. Right. So, like I guess, you know, sort of the topic of jokes has come up, and I think like if you joke with people where they're not really the butt of the joke, they're in on the joke, you know. And I felt like with the hands and everything like that, like as long as I make the person that I'm you know, making they're laughing. I'm good with it. Like people saying, hey, you shouldn't talk like Scotti. You're taking Scott like Scotty loves it, like he loves it more than anybody. I'm like, so he's not offended. Why are you? You know? And then how you feeling going into the round two? You guys are obviously going to rematch it, So how you feeling? I feel good? I mean obviously, you know, I think he'll bring some a different game for the second one, or I think he's gonna do some different stuff. Right, we'll see, you know, like I'm prepared to play, you know, a few different ways and stuff like that and go with the flow. I didn't have to run any big bluffs because I had hands. But it's funny because there was one hand where he folded the turn and I had four high and I was one hundred percent going to bluff that pot, like I'd already made up my mind that I'm gonna call this turn if he bets him jamming, but he just folded down. I was like, okay, cool, I win four high, all right? So that was Daniel Legron. You post round one win against Eric Person. You guys heard him say there, he basically had the cards to get it done. Even the final hand Ace King verse as Queen Person had the ace Queen Nagran who dominated him with the Ace King. I mean it was just the grown us day. That's how it can be in this regard. And yeah, I mean going forward, this was originally supposed to be two rounds between these two players. That's that's what they signed up for. But things change and Eric Person backed out kind of eleventh hour, last minute, but he backed out. So the rules we also change the rules for high stakes tool. It's that you just have to win two matches consecutively and then you can walk away with the title. So McGrane has one of those under his belt, one of the two wins. He has to win the next round and then he can take the money. If someone else comes in and beats him, you know, they have to win two in a row to cash out, etc. So right now where we are with this is there's thirty days or twenty nine or twenty eight days, however many days it is until someone challenges him. Yeah, there's been some people out there that have that have kind of stepped up to the plate mostly via social media, throw their names into the ring there to challenge Dan and legrand you and then I guess it's on us a slut who we wants in? We'll see who change share challenges Daniel, who you got? Who would you like? Who's the dream? Yeah? Your dream? Like you can pick anyone. Honestly, I think it would be pretty fun to see Doug Polk play him. They have their history and high sex feud. You know. I wouldn't mind saying someone like s Fandiari, you know, two losers to fill home with playing off against losers. Yeah, like come on swept by Phil, you know, and then maybe we see Phil come in and round five. I'm just happy you haven't said Phil home. That's what I'm happy about. No, we don't need to see that again. Yeah, I'm with you. I would like to see Jason Koon okay um just because he's the one who ultimately came out with the belt in High Stakes Dual three the heavyweight champ. He's the heavyweight champ. I would like to see him now get back in the ring facing the gron. I think that would be a fun, really high level poker match. But also two guys who have like enough personality that it would be fun and entertaining. But the personality isn't overbearing, Like they're not totally like in your face, non stop whatever. I know, these two like wouldn't really come at each other a whole ton. Yeah, but I still think it would be fun to like just see that level of poker between these two guys one hundred thousand dollars apiece, and then we go from there, and then like I think, going going forward from that, If Nigrani wins, great, he has the belt, Um that's that's a great story. If Kohon wins, you know, he goes on to the next round, which I think he's a very worthy continued to to go forward. Um, So yeah, I think that's who I would want to see. But it mostly comes back to what happened at the end of High Stakes Tool three and see him come back. I like your call of Antonio Spondiardo. I think that that would be fun. Um. So yeah, I think that's all I got for those for that one. I mean, I don't really know who else. Doug Polk, I just I don't know. I feel like I feel like it might be a little too like kumbaya, Like after what happened on the Twitter spaces, they might like, you know, and I'd kind of steer away from that and less kumbaya. But I don't know. I don't know. I like Jason Kohn, you know, That's what That's what I said. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. Do you think anyone's gonna come up? Jungle Man might be cool. I think they'll pay people will challenge obviously we have. The thing is is like Dan, and we experienced this when Jason Kohon won and he ultimately like didn't find a challenger for the next round, So that was one point. But that's what I'm getting at is that this Daniel is a very good player, right, So like if you were to play Daniel at one point six million, you might not want to do that, but you only have to put up one hundred k, So it's it's much more palatable for for challengers. It's much more easy for people to like raise money if they have to all that sort of stuff. So you know, the difference between playing someone for one hundred thousand dollars or playing there for one point six million is a very very big difference. Okay, So I think we're gonna see a lot of people throw throw their names out there. It's to get in there, and then we're gonna have a tough time challenging. We don't have a date for this yet. Again. We have to let the thirty days play out and then we'll go from there. Um so yeah, maybe you and I will you know, run it up, throw some money, steal four on four. I mean we can just start that like in our backyard. 's what we can do, all right, Moving away from all the poker girl stuff, We're gonna head on over to Oklahoma, if you can believe it. WPT Choctaw my first ever wt Evan. I've never been the Choctaw. Yeah, don't really care to go. It's great. Okay, I've heard the opposite, but okay, really from her, from everyone that goes there, don't you know what everyone that says that goes there, it's a place that once you go once, you don't ever have to go by. I love that place. The pool is awesome. The pool is awesome. Pool. Anytime somebody tells me that about a place, that means that means you don't even have to go once. I like ch so WPT Choctaw reaches its final table. beIN Wang is absolutely crushing. He is the chip leader of the WPT Choctaw final table, but he's also the chip leader of the wp T Seminal Hard Rock Poker Showdown final table that happened what like a week or two before Choctaw. Yeah, so Ben Wang is absolutely crushing. I think he started the year with a massive win at Borgata. If I'm not mistaken, in the in their Return event, I think he was the winner. He yes, he won the return for a million dollars. There you go. A couple of weeks later he won them. Yeah, the event you played the second main? Here? The event I played? Can you played the Horle Shop Main? No? I remember we went. We went to the horse. It was waymoky and crazy, and I was like, I'm not putting myself through this. The heck with this, I'm out. He won that for two hundred and twenty seven thousand. Had a bunch of little little cashes leading up until Seminal chip leader Choctaw y Seminal. I think he's got He's got like well like forty percent of the chips and player like something one hundred and fifty four big blinds playing for one point one million dollars. Yeah from a field of two thousand, two hundred and nine sounded seminal. Um. That final table is going to take place later on this month at the I hope they didn't change this name because I'm gonna say it, the hyper x E Sports Arena over at the lux Stor. I hope they didn't change the name. I know, like it used to be called like the Allied Esports Round. Yeah, I think that the current terminology. So anyway, Um, it also used to be a club that I went to a couple of times. It was a great Um. I forget exactly. I just think that I think they had hip hop nights on Wednesdays and that was like when we um so yeah, So Ben waging Is is crushing the WPT Seminal Final table and then he makes the WPT chalked off Final table. Just a little bit of a contrast in the first place prizes. Tim mentioned the one point one million dollars the more than one point one million dollars for Seminole Choctaws four hundred k. Still a great chunk of money, but um, you know, only about one third of the prize one a little bit more than one third or of first place prize there these chalked off field size is this is something that's stuck out to me, Like when I was watching the updates. I mean, they've kind of taken a dip recently, and I think it really just has to do with the time slot that it's put in. So Choctaw this year, the main event, the WPT Main Tour WPT Choctaw event had a two million dollars prize. School I saw that it got you know, two point one three million in the prize when I was like, that seems weird. I feel like they used to get like nine hundred two thousand runners. So I went back and looked. So last year they actually had seven eighty seven. This year they had six hundred and twelve, so pretty steep drop off there. Year before that twenty twenty one, nine sixty four. So let me just kind of run through these because I want to give them months also. So this year twenty twenty three, they ran WPT Choctaw in May six hundred and twelve entries. Last year also ran it in May seven hundred and eighty seven entries. Twenty twenty one they ran it in July nine hundred and sixty four entries. Now, there wasn't anything in twenty twenty due to the pandemic twenty nineteen, five hundred and seventy seven entries. Guess what it was in May twenty eighteen, seven fifty five, twenty seventeen, nine, twenty four, twenty sixteen, one thousand and sixty six, twenty fifteen, eleven hundred and seventy five. All four of those years eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, and fifteen, we're all in August twenty sixteen was end of July slash August. I don't know why you would see this data and have this in May. Ever, I think you have made a big big data people and we would see this and be like, yes, this is clearly you put this in August, right, Like, yeah, this is what you come like. Obviously, everyone focuses on the SUP in the summer, right, There's obviously stuff that goes around in Las Vegas, but it's it's mainly World Series of Poker focused. Then afterwards like boom into Chalktown something like middle of August, you know about you know, there's obviously going to be the Europeans that head on over. You know, usually like EPT Barcelona's kind of in that slot, but w PT Chalk Toss seems like it really thrived in that window. Um. So yeah, so I know there's uh some WPT people out here. They're listening. Our advice to you would be look at WPT Chalco back in August. Now I know what we're gonna get the text message that says it's because of production and we got to film the final tables at the end of May and blah blah blah and yah yah yah, yeah, okay whatever, figure it out. Okay, figure it out. Um. But overall, the story from this is Ben Wang, is he gonna do it? Is he gonna win both? Are these back to back? Because because they also have gardens which has start Maybe he'll make that foul table too. I'm gonna say he wins one and finishes second or third in another one. I'm not sure which. But you're Ben Wang, Yes, you make both these foul tables. You have the chip leads that he has. What is a failure to you? If you finish fourth in one and fifth in the other, where you are you like pissed? I think I feel like you have the top three bars. Yes, if you have fourth or worse in both, I think that's a failure. I mean, actually it's not a failure is the wrong word, you know, it's just disappointing. Disappointing. Seminal, he has double second and chin. He has so many chops toll. He's only got ten big blinds more than seconds, so it's a lot of a flatter, uh set of chip counts. I remember, Seminal, he has a big advantage. I remember when we first saw this guy, was that Seminole When we went down there for those high rollers in August the one year and I was like, who's this guy? Guy? You know, We're like, yeah, it's been wing. He was talking about how he like was playing home games and then he's like in the twenty five cows like, I don't even know what's happening any of the best. Clearly he is the best. It's having one hell of a year. Um, we'll see if he goes on to uh, you know, win these or you know, top three tables gardens. That would mean going into gardens which starts win next week. This week, I don't even know. Um, I mean it has to be all eyes on him. The return of the Gardens too. By the way, what do you mean a return of the guard Well, they had a couple of years off, oh they did. Gardens is a great place to play, you know, gotten stots on the twenty first. So okay, so they're gonna like lead right into the final table pretty much. Yeah, make the font within, fly to Vegas or drive or take an uber like nick eraball, whatever you want to do. Um. So yeah, that'll be a good way to kind of lead into the summer there um overall. Um. But yeah, as I said, all eyes on bin wank breakout player of the year. Did he break out before this? I'd have to look it up. But well you would say yes, No, I would say why would I say yes? He needs to like have like won something? Wow? He has, But what is your definition of how valuable that win? What is the wind? Tell me? Well, he wanted to win PGT High Roll of back in March last year for nearly two hundred thousand? What else anything else? Before? That's got a second place in a um WPT Lucky Hot steep Stack. No, he's got multiple six figure scals, is what I'm trying to say. I think he is a multiple four four if we five, he won the Bogada, fifth in the Bogada, he's definitely broken out. Does not quality, No, because I don't. He's got results back to twenty fifteen. Does not understand, but like he no, one remembers second through whatever place you want to put on it. They only remember the wins. Okay, like that, that's just how it is. You only got our wins. And then we're signing for a breakout. I mean, yeah, you have to like have won something, and it has to be a notable something. So like him winning a high roll or tournament, which generally are are side events respectful to the PGT. No, but I'm saying that one was probably a side event as part of a series. Like it wasn't like he won like a Poker Masters event. No. Yeah, he's got multiple wins, but no, and the your qualifications, Yeah he does not. This is his breakout year and started in January when he won their Return then a million bucks could likely win another million bucks at Seminal and then you know, had that bank roll a little more with four under k and then jump is PTV more actually played a couple sounds like if you're gonna bet on somebody to win a bracelet. It's probably been waning because he's just winning everything this year. Jeremy Bakley. Um, yes, yes, shout out that guy. That's his first name, right, je Jeremy Becker, Jeremie Becker. His one Like what four? I think it's win. No, I think it's four win daily tournaments. Yeah, in the last like two weeks. Every time, Win does a really good job with their social media. If you're part of like a poker room out there and you're looking to kind of do things on social media, I would look at at Win Poker on Twitter and do what they do, okay, which is like, take a nice winter photo, tweeted out, put it out there. South Point does a pretty good job of this as well, you know, constantly putting their stuff out there. Um, just just put your stuff out there. People are following, they want to know what's happening in the streets, and this guy, Jeremy Becker is out there winning everything. Six wins this year. But he said flick four in the last two weeks, he said four at the win one of the nation, one in Hollywood, Florida, and the fourth the winner Like in the last two weeks. He just wins all the dailies. He's yeah, twenty fourth of April, thirtieth of April, fourth of May just just crush. And yesterday yesterday or two that hasn't yet, yeah, but that's not yet. But yeah, yeah, he's just winning. He's seven and everything dropping for twenty five K, forty one dollars. I mean he's only he's only winning like four K in these in these nightlies, but you know he has eight hundred K winning yea. Yeah, No, he's a solid player. I've played with him sometimes in the in the win events. Um, he's good. Uh. And you know, it's always good to see these people go on these crazy heaters like this. I always like, I'm like a sucker for that, like the bin waning stuff, this stuff. Um, you had the what was it Georgie was the other guy George crushing everything. So yeah, um, I'm always a sucker for that sort of stuff, you know, partly because I'm just waiting for mine to have it's coming. Sit nowhere, that's right, Um, all right, let's head on over across the pond. Triton, North Cyprus kicked off today. Tim and I have been watching the live stream on the Triton YouTube channel. In the office today was what the twenty five k GG super millions as part of the series one hundred and fifty nine entries. Hello, well, by the way, this reminds me speaking of going across the pond, you left something off the rundown, EPT Monte Carlo. Hello, we'll get to We'll get to that next. Um. But yeah, uh so, yeah, so there's three point nine almost four million dollars in the price, well nine or eighteen thousand dollars. For first, there's people playing in the tournament I've never seen before. There's obviously a lot of notable names, right, you know, you got the Stephen Chidwick, Jason Kuhn's out there, Nacho Barbara, I saw Nick Petrangelo, Dancemoth, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And then there's just people. I'm just like, who are these people? Yeah, I mean they're they're probably crushers from other countries. Yeah, a lot of them are from like Ciders, Russian guys. A lot of the Asian players that you haven't heard of just yet are out there playing. I mean, it looks like it's just going to be just for trying on like Gig or Poke King maybe, Yeah, I'm assuming there was. I think I think on Gig because Gig Gig Poker is UM like a sponsor official sponsor obviously with Gig Super Millions UM being a part of the series. So so yeah, Triton, I'm assuming they're live streaming everything from there, So tune on in for the next what two weeks UM. A lot of stuff going on. Chief among them is this luxe On Invitational, the luxe On Pay Invitational two hundred thousand dollars buying. That's one of those ones with a very unique format that you basically have to enter in pairs, although you're playing individually. And what I mean by that is a businessman or a VIP however you want to classify them. Can invite the pros. If you're a pro, you can just rock up and be like I'm in because my two hundred k I'm in. No, like Steven Chitwood can't show up, Jason Coon can't just show up. Those guys have to be paired with somebody. Um. We talked about this, uh couple episodes ago. We mentioned Carry Katz and Bryn Kenny were in there. They're now out now longer. Carrie said he's not gonna go. Um I I didn't see Brent on the updated list, so so yeah, um, I mean that's gonna be a fun one to fall of course. Um big. They still split the field, right, vps play one day? Honestly, I have no idea. I think they still split the field so they don't merge the VP and pro pool until day two. I mean that's that's smart. You know, that's smart. Yeah, I mean I think that's good. You wouldn't want to, you know, if you're just gonna show up as a VIP, get randomly drawn to a table before a bunch of killers, and it's like yeah, yeah, so, um, I didn't see Talal Shakirchi on there, winner of the last Triton Poker Series main event over in Vietnam. I would like to see him get in there. Um. So yeah. I think you can go to Triton Poker dot com. Uh, you know, click on the little link for the Luxon invitation and you can seek some of the pairings that are out there. The one that jumps out to me is the Puna Puncery and Danny Tang just because we're like Puna a VIP. I mean, definitely don't. It seems more like a poker player to me than a VIP. But that's gonna be a super super fun event to follow. Of course, they have a one hundred thousand dollars nolan At main event. They have a fifty thousand dollars Short Deck main event. If you haven't ever watched Short Deck, I know it like hasn't caught on like everyone said it would over here in the States, but it is super popular among the Triton crowd, and they're basically all on every hand because it's like you can't get dealt a bad hand and then they just somebody gets it in and it's just it's an all in fest NonStop. It's like kind of a more tame version of a Flipping going Away because every time I watched Short Deck on the Triton series, there's an all in every hand, eighty percent of the hands all in. It's crazy. So yeah, so that's gonna be going on. But we have to touch on EPT Monte Carlo because Tim decided to leave it off all of the rundown because he just doesn't know what he's doing. The guy has never been to an EPT, so He's just like, you know what, never, the hell with it? Have you really never been to one? That's not my fault that you lived in Australia. Okay, if you would have moved here sooner, you likely would have been over there. Yeah. UM believe it was a record center for the main events m one. They had more than a thousand entries. Mike Watson, Sir Wats becomes the third two time EPT champion. Um, Mike Watson won the PCA years ago, and the PCA was always counted as part of the EPT, I think, except for one year, was part of the NAPT. But we all know what happened to the NAPT. It went away. Um so yeah, so Mike Watson comes out on top. I thought Mike Watson did a great winners interview afterwards with Stapes up on stage, you know, just kind of talking about what the win meets to him in his career and all that sort of stuff, The pressure that was on him, you know, being ferience with the child at the final table, blah blah blah. Very well spoken interview. The media person in me watched the interview happened and I was like, that was really well done. Mike Watson. I'm very proud of you. Let's not forget who his wife is. Well, she's a pr pro. Yeah, I mean yeah, hell but they people jam a mic in front of your face with cameras on, like you know, you don't always articulate yourself. I'm chief among them. I say dumb shit all the time. It doesn't matter, And I talk on the podcasts and microphones and live streams and a lot, you know. I mean that's just how it is. You're pretty good at it. I don't really know how that happened, but you know, look, I heard your Daniel the Grinder interview. You asked him how are you feeling? Twice? And that's a big, big no no in our industry, asking how are you feeling? But I thought I phrased the first one like not It wasn't that. You gotta just look. I remember that, I remember, and I remember going in like, how am I gonna like ask this? Because we do hate we do hate the hart are you feeling? But with him, it was like you've been in here trying this many times, you haven't been able to beat anyone. Yeah, now finally you got one, so like, you know, how does it feel? To kind of get that monkey off your I mean, I know how I might have approached that question, but it is hot. Even from outside. It's hard to think of the right questions. And I mean I hate I hate the very the very generic. You just want how do you feel, you know, with the money, But it's I think I think you can kind of bend the rules a little bit there if there's some history, like with Daniel, it's like, you know, you've been in here multiple times, like how do you feel to get that monkey off your back in a way to finally get a win inside here? Not just like, hey, you want how do you feel? Like, No, that's that's dumb. What was the second time I said it out? I can't remember. It was later on it was something to do. I transcribed it for the winner story and I saw that I saw another Hey, yeah, sometimes my brain just doesn't work. That's just how it is. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Um? Mike Watson did great though, as I said, um crush that tournament. He beat Leonard in heads up play. Mao has played a bunch of PGT events yes in the past, so um clearly two of the more experienced players. Um, you know deep in that field at the final table, et cetera. Um, I think uh, Mike Watson took home. They made a deal heads up, but then per the EPT, they always played for something on the side. He took home what seven euros, which is like eight hundred and twenty k USD. I remember them that used to be like seven million USD back in the day, right, I mean that's how it was, right, Um, one hundred thousand dollars super high roller over there. Mikita Badziakowski won that one. Um. So yeah, the EPT is just it's going strong. Yeah, I mean it seems like nothing ever happened with the EPT. We kind of went away for a little while and then it came back and it's just right back to where it started. I mean, poker is more popular than ever. The Europeans need something. Unless you know, unless you're in Choctaw than it's going the wrong way. We're gonna run the next takeover tournament and Choco they move it to if they just move it to August, Yes, they need to meet Augus. There's gonna be eight hundred entries in that tournament. UM so yeah, what else we gotta talk about no Gambino future is going strong on poker grow, high stakes, poking strong on poker grow. Um, you got a family pot? Do you want to get into that? Yeah, I'm hopefully you have one. Why would I have got a big troop this weekend? I did have a big trip. Let's play the music. I don't know what I'm really gonna talk about in regards to my big trip, So we're gonna play the music and then we'll just get into some stuff. It's time, all right, buddy, what do you got from me? You have something versus something small, So something's gonna be the size of the titan We did finish the Titanic. Yeah, it's about he was very scared of the people dying. But that's yeah, that's what it is. Um, he's he's got two wobbee teeth. One fell out, got ten dollars from a tooth ferry. He's had this other one that's just been just sitting there the front tooth just not falling out. Yank get out man. Yeah, Well, so he had to do the whole like, you know, tie a string and I put it on the door. I suggested that you'll what happened Sunday. He gets hit in the face of basketball training with the ball and it's bleeding a bit. I'm like, all right, it's fine, you'll be okay, you know. Do you want me to pull that out? He says no, no, no. As he's playing basketball, he's like flicking it with his tongue back and forth. And I'm like, this kid's gonna swallow his tooth anyway. We get home, like, let's pull it out. He's no, I'm too scared. I'm too scared. And then I joke with him. I get a pair of tweezers. It's like no, no, no, I get like some string. He's like no. He runs away. Then I'm like, all right, I know how and get him. I go to my garage. I get my wrench. Come out your wrench and you know, the adjustable wrench. Yeah, And I chase chase him on the house for like ten minutes. He's so quick. I finally get him. I put him on the couch and like climb on top of him and hold him down, and I put the wrench and I'm going to write out He's I'm not gonna do it, but he's just like freaking out, He's like, and then my wife's just like, you're gonna scar him for life. I was just gonna say you're gonna scar I'm like, I'm just messing around. So then he's never gonna want to go near a tool box every Then then he starts wrestling with me straight away, like there's no break. He just starts wrestling, jumping on me, and his tooth pops out. He's bleeding, but he's fine. Now he's too sad. He got his ten dollars from the tooth fairy and he's he's all good. I don't know what the rate is. We we were on shore and the first time we gave him ten, and now we've just got to stick to ten. I guess ten dollars. It seems like it's a lot. How many teeth you lose. The kids at a lot of money. He lose a lot, though. I think you lose all of them. I mean ten bucks, man, good lord, Yeah, my kids like getting ten bucks, that's for sure. Whatever you start with you have to continue with, So start low. We made the mistake starting with a quarter quarter. God. Well, times are tough, man. We just went to Disneyland. That's what Tim was talking about my big trip. We went to Disneyland. Big argument with my wife, going back and forth, should we go, should we not go? She wins, Happy wife, happy life, all that good stuff. We ended up going to Disneyland. Kid loved it. She's what twenty six months old now, um, so she loved it, had a lot of fun. She's still kind of scared of the actual characters. She's scared of like adults and costumes. She doesn't like that brother to Santa Claus freaked out, brought to the easter, Bunnie absolutely freaked out. The bigger costumes that came around on Halloween freaked out this one. She was like kind of because she watches you know, the Disney characters all time, Mini, Mickey, et cetera. So she was she was a little bit more willing to like interact with them, go near them, but like she wouldn't hug Mini. She would only go kind of near her, like give her a high five. So yeah, my big takeaway is that the food at Disneyland absolutely sucks. Okay, it's like a hot so no, it's why is that a hot? Take? It so bad? It's just I've never what you pay fourteen dollars for like dry ass chicken and some white rice. People talk about like the treats they have. It was like the special like Halloween treats, Christmas treats and stuff. The I've only I've been to Disneyland a few times, disney World as well. I've only found one thing that is like worth like what I think the money. That is they have these jumbo turkey legs. I mean they are like the size of your head. This is like a Thanksgiving I have no idea, but like they're amazing. Okay, they're so good, like they're just smoked turkey legs. They're awesome. That sounds pretty good. Um, That's the only thing that I think is worth it. Everything else I think stinks and is super overpriced. But like I feel like they should like really like do it up, like make the restaurants and the food option is better. They're just not there's not that good. They're not Okay, nothing is good. Not taking the family into Disneyland. It's so expensive for me. You're rich. You're giving out ten dollars tooth fairy gifts as I'm today, you're about to book our trip to Hawaii. But yeah, yeah, Ira eight fish Tacos on the beach there. Disney Disneyland was good. You know, ultimately I'm happy we went. Um it was good. Not gonna go for another seven years, I told my wife. But happy enough to go on rides? Was it rides for like young yeah? She, uh, my kid was. We measured her on like there's a lot of rides that don't require any heart requirement. Okay, then there's obviously something that require you to be like, you know, ninety inches tall or something. Um, But there was a few where she met the minimum requirement, which was thirty two inches. She was like exactly thirty two, which might have been because we you know, we did her hair a certain way made her a little bit taller, but anyway, it doesn't matter. Um. But yeah, so yeah, that was that was fun. We found out she doesn't like spiders because we went to um the what is it, the Avengers campus. UM. Spider Man not so into that. UM A little bit scared of uh, I would say, timid, not really scared timid of the um the darkness and a lot of the rides. But she liked it overall. So yeah, I thought it was good. It was a good trip. Quick four hour drive from Vegas. So yeah, quick four hour drive. I mean, yeah, it wasn't that bad. What I hate that drive? No, that drive is fine. You should try and do the drive to Tahoe and then I've done that one come back and we did that once for Gary. No not that one again yea. Um, but yeah, so that was my tribute was fun Disneyland. Um, if you guys have any different opinions out there, maybe you share the same sort of thing on the food, let us know on social media. Um at Doniana score Peters, that's me at tram Stoff with a zero for the O on him. And speaking of social media, I'm gonna give a shout out to Gary Gates. You guys know a friend of the Pod fourth place main event finisher a couple of years ago. He's been doing these AI mascots. Have you seen these? Scary as hell. Basically he's just been using artificial intelligence. Mid Journey is the AI tool that he's been using, and he goes in there and he prompts them to like recreate the mascots from the sports He started with the NFL. He put that out there. They spit out all thirty two NFL teams mascots, some of them are just out of control, hideous. Like again, social media gets in a frenzy, and then he did the NBA after that same sort of thing. Just total total whack job, you know, mascots come out of it, and then he did the NHL. But like all three of these tweets and each one is like a thread and you can find him. He's just at Gary Gates on social media. Gary is with two rs on social media on Twitter. Um, you can find these threads. But I think he was on like he was on a morning show today in Phoenix Talks, yeah, talking about it, like all these different websites have written about it. Yeah, a lot of the teams, a lot of the teams are like having fun with it, like like today the Washington Capitals are going on their thing. Um, the Detroit Pistons one has like its own subreddit now, like among the Detroit Pistons fans, they've like really taken a love to this guy. And it also so it uses like the team colors, but it like distorts the name and everything, like totally changes the name and a lot of them, so like the Pistons one, it's changed. I think peton is how you would say it, p t O n Okay, So like the subreddit is just like yeah, peton, peton, Like they're all about pton now. So it's just this whole it's this whole thing. Um. But you know, if you guys want some want some fun in social media, you can check out Gary's Twitter at Gary Yates and uh yeah, see what one is your favorite? It's pretty wacky and wild. We need to do some some sort of poker thing with AI at some point, but yeah, but anyway, that's that all right, that's gonna do it for Tim and myself. Don't forget to leave a review for the poker Go podcast wherever you listen to your podcast, but of course, as we always say, preferably on Apple podcasts, and then take a screenshot of that review, email it into podcast at poker go dot com and we will enter you into our giveaway on the next episode, a signed and framed piece of felt of all the players and the announcers from the High Stakes Poker Special Edition live stream. Okay, that's what we're giving away on the next one. Is a very cool, unique commemorative prize, So get in there before we record next week. That's gonna do it for us, and we'll talk to you guys later. Lease RD to night on the Jenny Eating Spread