Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome to a new episode of the Poker
Go Podcast. My name is Donny Peters, and I'm here
solo tonight. It is it just hit eleven o'clock on
the dot as I looked at my phone on Memorial Day, Monday,
May twenty fifth. It is the eve of the twenty
twenty six World Series of Poker. Just drove home from
the Las Vegas trip from the Poker Grol studio for
what was the annual twenty five K Fantasy Draft hosted
by the One, the Only Daniel Negranu. That's going to
be the bulk of the discussion on today's show. But first,
a housekeeping item or two. I know we've been off
for quite some time here on on these airwaves. Last
pod was February twentieth. I looked it up. I want
to see the date, February twenty. That was a hell
of a long time ago. Sorry about that hiatus. Call
out what you will, but we are back for WSP
season and we will be coming to you multiple times
a week. My plan is at least five times a week,
if not daily. I just don't want to set it
the expectation too high and then ultimately fall short. You know,
so ultimately under to promise over deliver. That's how we're
going to go about it. But I also looked at
that last podcast, and it was a WSP focused podcast
because we dropped it talking about the WSP schedule for
this year, one hundred WSP Gold Bracelet events. The first
of those kicks off on Tuesday. I'm recording this on
Monday night. You're likely going to hear this on Tuesday,
so the WSP will be off and running. I don't
know how often I'll have a guest or a co
host on this show this summer, but I love the pod.
It's my favorite thing to do when it comes to
this job and my role within this industry. So I'm
gonna do my damn just to bring you guys something
every single day that I can. Maybe that's every single day,
maybe it's ninety seven percent of the days, but we'll
see how it goes. This year's twenty five K Fantasy
Draft had twenty four teams. I did not participate this year.
I'll get into that in a little bit my thoughts
on why I didn't do it, But yeah, twenty four
teams this year. That ties the record. The record was
set last year also with twenty four teams, it did
look like there might be twenty five this year. Everyone's
kind of hanging around the studio waiting to get things
kicked off. Daniel announced up at the front of the
room that there were twenty five teams, but then shortly
thereafter he said, you know, there's twenty four teams, so
maybe somebody backed out, couldn't make it last minute, whatever
the case may be, that tends to happen, you know,
every single year. I'm also interesting that twenty four squads
this year. That's a great turnout. Many of us went
into this even though I had known that I wasn't
going to be participating this year, you know, I still
kept them an eye on things, and it just felt
like the number was gonna be down a little bit.
I mean, twenty four is a big ass number from
last year, right, And then you know you hear like, okay,
this this person's not gonna have a team this year,
or this team's not going to be back this year,
or this team over here and this team over there
like they're gonna comebine and just be one team. So
you know, I'm thinking, okay, seventeen eighteen nineteen. Maybe in
that realm is where it's going to land. Next thing,
you know, I mean, there's like sixty seventy people in
the studio and I'm looking around like, holy crap, half
these people I don't even know. It looks like a
bunch of new players in here. So they ended on
twenty four Daniel did announce that first place would be
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, so ten x the
twenty five K buy in. He also said the top
five spots would be paid, so that's gonna be the
payoff structure for this one. Twenty five K Fantasy dot
Com is where you guys can get all the information.
You can follow things throughout the summer. Twenty five K
Fantasy dot Com keeps everything updated as best as I
have ever seen, you know, better than almost better than
like the official tournament reports at times. They keep all
the scoring up to dates, you know, all the team rankings,
the league leaderboard and standings. They got all the rules
there that you can dig into. You can also look
at some past history of stuff, you know, past history
of players drafted, how much they went for scoring, past teams,
how they were constructed and put together.
Speaker 2: All that sort of stuff that's.
Speaker 1: Over on twenty five K fantasy dot com and twenty
five K fantasy dot com is where you will also
find information on David ODB Baker's fantasy league, appropriately titled
ODB Fantasy, so you can find that. There's a special
tab on twenty five K fantasy dot Com for the
ODB Fansantas League and ODB is one of four players
that I spoke to after the draft was over. I
caught up with Sean Deep. He was the first team
that completed filling out his roster of all eight players,
I caught up with him. I talked to ODB, I
talked to Jeremy Becker, and then I went out and
I got Ryan Steiner. Now that name you may not
know Ryan Steiner. Believe he's out of Arizona player, plays
a lot of poker tournaments around the place I think
you might remember him from would be We did a
Venetian Poker live tournament stream within the last year or
so and Steiner was a part of that and made
the final table. I believe went pretty deep there. Also
won the Arizona State Poker Championship. I believe back to
back years if I'm not mistaken. The reason why I
wanted to talk to Steiner specifically is because he's a
rookie this year in twenty five K Fantasy. I'd been
in his shoes before, being a rookie coming into that room,
plopping down twenty five K, you know, battling with some
of the biggest names in poker in this fantasy league.
But he got right in and you know, I'll spoil
a little bit, but I love his team, I really
really do. So we'll talk to him as well. So
those are the four players that you'll hear from on
this show, Sean Deep, David Baker, Jeremie Becker, and Ryan Steiner.
Now I told you I would tell you about why
I didn't get involved this year. You know, every single year,
I plan that when the calendar turns over to a
new year, when January rolls around, that I'll start working
on my spreadsheets. I'll start updating everything.
Speaker 2: I have a.
Speaker 1: Whole big Google doc Google sheets, you know, all worked out.
I start updating everything. I import all the results from
last year's w SOOP, I pull results from elsewhere in
the poker world that I think are notable results that
I should start digging into and I really just start
aggregating all of this data and I put it together.
And I don't do this all at once, and I
don't spend a lot of time like per day when
I sit down, but maybe a couple hours a week.
And that's why I give myself from January all the
way up until the end of May, because you know,
I don't want to just be cramming, cram and cramming
for like two or three weeks straight, So just working
on a couple hours a week, and that's how I
go about it. Now. This year, I don't know, January
rolled around, calendars flying by, and I just really didn't
think about it that much, just in terms of getting
motivated to do it, and next thing you know, it's February,
next thing you know, it's March. I hadn't even messaged
my fellow teammates that I often you know, deep dive with,
do research with, you know, get in the draft room
with all that sort of stuff. I hadn't really talked
to anyone about it. I don't know, I just didn't
feel like I wanted to do it. And I'm somebody
who likes to I don't know, listen to what my
mind and my body are telling me. So I said, whatever,
you know, maybe it'll come around, maybe it won't. Well
we'll just we'll just see how it goes. No real
reason to force it. I also felt, you know, maybe
once people start talking about it, once I see maybe
a couple people hit me up asking me to buy
a share of the team, maybe i'll see, you know,
Daniel posted on social media that it's coming up. Get
your teams together. Maybe I'll see some people, you know,
put their schedules out there, thinking, hey, I want to
get drafted. Maybe that'll, you know, spark the motivation for me.
But it just never happened. So yeah, so here I am.
I don't have a team. I feel fine about it,
you know, I don't. I don't really feel any fomo,
but I still want to talk about it. I do
think fantasy poker as a whole is awesome. I do
really want it to grow. You know, obviously, not everyone
has the means to be able to fire twenty five
k into a very exclusive fantasy league like the twenty
five K Fantasy, But I know plenty of people out
there have five hundred bucks that they can fire into
the ODB Fantasy. So if that's your fancy, I would
highly encourage you to do so. And again, all that
information for both the different leagues is available over at
twenty five k fantasy dot com. As a reminder, every
team gets two hundred auction dollars that they bid on players.
The roster is constructed of eight players. You got you
gotta pick eight. You can't pick seven, you can't pick six, No,
you gotta you gotta pick eight, and then you can't
spend more than two hundred dollars. It goes around the room.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The first team that gets a drawn to nominate, they
got to throw a player out. The bidding happens back
and forth. They'll settle on teams. I'm sure many of
you out there who are listening know how it all
goes by now, if you missed the draft and you
want to relive it or maybe skip through and catch
some of the highlights. We did stream it on the
Poker Go YouTube channel. The draft did take place at
the Poker Goro studio, so we turned on the cameras.
We fired up the live stream for this one. It
went about four or five hours, I believe was scheduled.
The kickoff at four thirty. Got started a little bit late,
finished I don't know, nine nine thirty something like that.
I think wasn't really looking at the clock, but you know,
you guys can check it out if you want. I know,
it was a little bit later here in Vegas, so
maybe not everyone in other parts of the world were
able to tune in, but really lively chat was going on.
You know. Obviously people are debating if picks were good
or bad, if they were valuable or not, all that
sort of stuff. So yeah, and then just just looking
over the teams, you know, I'm just gonna kind of
go through. You know, I was in the room, so
I kind of I had some thoughts when things were happening,
you know, in the moment. But I'm also now looking
at all twenty four of the teams and I'm kind
of just kind of go through them, and I guess
touch on you know, what I think is maybe good
or bad. I will say that I do feel like
I am somewhat of an expert in this regard. I
guess I have played this thing many times.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: I love Fantasy Poker. We did win it one year too,
so you know, typically cap to us for being able
to do that first team that that's on my list.
I'm just gonna go with how it was on the
Google sheet. But this is also the first team that finished,
which belongs to Sean Deeb. He's Team Lucky if you're
looking for his team over on twenty five k fantasy
dot com. He has Esther Taylor, Max Nusbauer, Frankie Brannon,
Dylan Wiseman, Martin Cabrell, Carrie katz Ze, Nig Zizka, and
Andreas Frolick. I spoke with Sean afterwards. I'll get to
that interview in a little bit, but you know, Sean
was like, you know, a lot of these guys are European.
People may not know about him. I'm in a room
with a bunch of dumb Americans, and I really love
my team. I have some question marks around the picks
of Esther Taylor Eta. You know, it's just more of
like what sort of volume are we gonna get from her?
I know she plays mixed games, and there's obviously a
lot of mixed games on the schedule, but I don't
think you can go like just a mixed games person player,
right Like, I just I don't know. I feel like
they need to be playing kind of everything. I'm I'm
a big, big volume guy when it comes to constructing
a team. I think you just need max volume. And
deep did say he thinks that. You know, his team
probably has the most volume of any other team, which
I guess is hard for him to say because when
I talked with him, he got done and he was
gonna leave, and there was still multiple hours left in
the draft. You know, teams were like half done. So
I don't know how he can say that right now,
but you know, it is what it is. I do
love the Martin Cabrell pick.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I know Martin Cabrell is an extremely polarizing player, but
Martin Cabrell for sixty nine dollars is quite nice, no
pun intended. I mean he's a guy who I mean
he only plays the wop or at least it's ninety
nine pop. He's gonna be out there raising all types
of hell in the fifteen hundred dollars monster stack all
the way up to the two hundred and fifty k
super High. I mean, he's he's gonna play it all.
Last year, you know, he won a bracelet in the minime.
You know, one K buying you know, multiple thousands of
players in that field. But then he's also someone who
he's going to be in the twenty five k's, he's
going to be in the fifties, the one hundred k's,
the two fifty, like, he's going to be doing.
Speaker 2: All of it now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Martin likely doesn't play all the mixed games unless
he learned some recently that I don't know about. But
he's going to be firing all the no limit stuff.
He's going to be firing all the PLO stuff. So
I really do like Martin Cabrell for sixty nine there,
Like I think he's a player who, you know, you
could make the case that he could push eighty ninety
maybe even kind of flirt with three digits. So yeah,
you know, Max Neusbauer, I don't. I mean, he was
in the room and he had a team and he
was bidding on himself. So I think that alone tells
me that he has interest and d was able to
snatch him up. Carry Katz I always think is a
pretty goodbye. You know, Carry freaking loves it. He'll be
there every day. So twelve dollars for Kerry Katz I
think is really good. Is that in Axisco I don't
really know too much about, and the same with Andreas Frolick.
But you know, I'm guessing they're pretty good European players.
But enough for me, let's just hear it right from
the man himself. This is Sean Deep. Hi, Sean Deep,
you are the first team to wrap up in the
twenty five K Fantasy Draft. You just shared a little
bit of thoughts hot way, how did it go?
Speaker 4: I think that most of the team captains are Americans.
They don't know who the fuck I drafted. I have
four amazing Europeans who put on amazing results in Walter's Europe.
Speaker 2: They're all gonna put it in a fan volume like
I love my team.
Speaker 4: I think everyone I got on my team I would
have paid at least ten dollars more for, if not more.
So obviously I'm willing to coach them the mixed games.
You know they have money behind them. It's just the
amount of volume and tournaments buyings played in my group
is probably gonna be number one of any team. So
it's yeah, I'm shocked. Like there's so many people I
got stumbled upon that I just laughed at. I think
no one knows who they are and listen, I'm out
of poker. I'm not that knowledgeable, but I guess, going
on a will two's year up the last you know,
ten years, I've met some people who are amazing poker players,
amazing people to root for. Everyone on my team is
begging for pieces. I'm going to make a ton of
side bets and yeah, it's a it's a good spot
to be in.
Speaker 2: Who on your team do you think is your best pick?
Speaker 4: Carry Katz for sure? You got him for twelve dollars,
What a fucking joke. I think Carry's going for like
fifty to seventy. A few years I had him a
bunch of times. I love Carrie as a person. We
already talked about me coaching him in mixed games. He
plays nolanmitt plo well and plays the highest stakes obviously,
and he loved you know, he wont to bracelet last year.
I know he's not as motivated because he want to
get his you know, the chip off his back. But
he is an amazing person to root for. Yeah, he's
a great student. He's obviously so fucking intelligent. Yeah, I
think I have the smartest team. I think I have
the Yeah, I just I'm in shock, because I literally said,
going into this event, I was like, I'm making no
side bets because I did no research, and I'm gonna
have a shitty team. I always get stuck with some people,
and I bit on some people, and I just when
the gavel got hit, I was just looking around and
was just like, people clearly don't know who they are,
what they're capable of. How come you don't take yourself.
I tried to actually take myself this year. Usually I don't.
I also change my schedule, like I listen, I come
here for Player of the Year. If I draft myself,
I would if I had myself on my team, I'd
play the five hundred tomorrow first over the five k.
For POI, the five k is by far the play,
but for Fantasy it's a little different. So I was
happy to not take myself because I can avoid some
of the biggest field stuff and I can play more
to win and final table as opposed to to get
the field bonus. But that's the thing I love about
my team is I think I can coach them on
the inflection points of fantasy and teach them the evy
of where to stole and when not to, so I'm
sure World Treo's gonna be pissed I'm talking about this stuff.
But yeah, it's kind of an unfortunate thing when you
have this much money on the line that people, you know,
affect the tournaments.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I kind of.
Speaker 4: Exit it out, but we'll let it ride. I'm sorry, Jack.
What do you think about your price?
Speaker 1: One hundred and thirty three dollars the most expensive player
this year's draft?
Speaker 2: Uh, I think it's reasonable.
Speaker 4: Obviously the last five ten years, I've put up the
most points per average, and obviously with my start in Europe,
I'm going hard for Player of the Year, going to
play a lot of the high buy ins. But it's
also you know, I was a highest point getter last year.
That's a hard thing to do with this many people
and this many events. But yeah, I think it's reasonable.
I think I have the highest floor out of anyone,
and I think everyone agrees that here. So if you're
gonna make side bets, if you have a lot of
good one dollar players, if I knew I could get
some of the people I did for what I did,
I might have bid more on myself, Like I would
love to have myself on my team instead.
Speaker 1: Of one or.
Speaker 4: Two other people. But I will still take my team
versus pretty much anyone. I don't care my team's the
first one done. I will blindly bet versus any group
of eight if anyone wants to side bet shops open.
Speaker 1: Is there anyone out there that you were surprised with
either how high they went or how low they went?
Speaker 2: Well, there's always a lot of things. I think.
Speaker 4: You know, it's crowd, everyone's drinking, everyone's distracted. Some people
definitely go for weight, like BENI was super low. There's
just people kind of have an idea of what they
want their team to be, and they don't bid on
just good players. Like I wasn't planned getting most people
on my team. I just saw them, I know their capabilities,
and I bid on them and then the bidding just stopped.
So yeah, it's kind of a weird spot where I
think most people are not aggressive enough bidding on great players.
They just kind of have an idea who they want
and if you get someone for way below value, why
not take them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a lot of teams in this draft.
Speaker 4: Obviously the side bets you want a different team floor based,
and I was actually picking my team originally on ceiling,
not floor, but I end up with some amazing floor guys,
and so yeah, so now I'm making side bets.
Speaker 1: It's Monday night, it's Memorial Day. WSP starts tomorrow. Are
you somebody who feels on the eve of it all
I'm fired up? Or are you more like, okay, time
to punch the clock.
Speaker 2: Nine to five. So I actually mentioned this to someone yesterday.
Speaker 4: I feel more pressure on myself this summer than another
summer because of my start in Europe. Everyone just assumes
it's back to back player of the year. I know
how fucking hard it is to do that.
Speaker 2: I've tried.
Speaker 4: I also know how great a start I have, but
also the variance that can be and also Bahamas will
be huge. You know, so many big buy in small
field events. But I'm excited to play poker. I love
the World Series and my wife is holding down the
ford at home and I get to be here for
fifty some days and she takes care of the kids
and every other responsibility. So now I'm in poker mode,
which I haven't been in since you know, last year.
Speaker 1: If you were to predict your summer, what do the
results look like?
Speaker 4: I think one win, two seconds, a fourth, and like
two other final tables.
Speaker 1: All right, So that was Sean Deeb. You heard him
talk about how he feels like his team is going
to put in a ton of volume. He likes his
team compared to any other team out there. I'm sure
he's gonna have plenty of side action on the line.
You know, deep is somebody who it's I mean, it's
it's absolutely all or nothing every single summer. I mean,
the guy is all in. He chases Player of the
Year just to a crazy degree. He goes after all
the brace. That's he's going to be there every single day.
And then on top of it, you know he has
tons of side action going for him in the fantasy stuff.
So Deeb is all in every single summer. Team Glazer,
that was a Benny team Glaser. Excuse me, Benny Glaser
and Chris Brewer. They got Brandon Shack, Harris Craig Chate,
Shawn Winter, Kristen Foxen, Dan Smith, James Opps, Blajerry Off,
and Patrick Stacey. Now, this is a tricky thing when
you go to turn up. You know, if you're going
to enter an ODB team, you're going to see Patrick
Stacey thirty four dollars. Why what the heck just happened? Well,
they had thirty four dollars left, they had one player
to fill, so they just fired him into thirty four
dollars just to make sure that no one else could
get him. I think Blajerryoff is a very very good
pick here. Underrated player had a lot of success either
last year or the year before at the w SP,
challenging for Player of the Year. All that sort of
stuff kind of came out of nowhere to do that.
Love that pick. I think Kristin Foxon is going to
be a pretty good pick Sean Winter, you know, as
long as he's out there for sure playing all the
high buy and big bet stuff. A great pick as well.
Brandon shack Harris is a little bit of a wild
card to me. You know, he's kind of had up
and down years in terms of how much volume we're
got to get out of Brandon shak Harris. But he
was in the room. He was hanging out with these guys,
so I'm guessing he's in the know with them. Next up,
we got the Lang gang. That was Mike Lang and
Josh Reichard. They picked somebody who is the first on
my notes that I think is a bit too expensive,
and that is Ari Angele Listen love Ari, absolute grinder.
He'll be playing poker every single day. The question is
will he be at the World Series of Poker every
single day? That's the big question mark with Ari. You
know he's gonna hunt value all.
Speaker 2: Over Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: We've seen Las Vegas. We've seen it in the past.
So just don't know if he's going to be one
all in on the World Series. In my opinion, you
want people who are ninety nine percent, if not one
hundred percent, going to be at the World Series of Poker.
That's the only place that they go. That's the only
place that they will play. And you know, some players,
it's hard to gauge if they will or if they won't.
You like to think that they will, but then maybe
they find something at the win or at the Aria
or wherever it may be that that might draw him in.
So it's it's it can be a guessing game for
some players, and you can be surprised when they go
out their I get it. But Ari, I think I
think he you know that he's gonna search elsewhere. Now
maybe they have inside information that he's only going to
be playing at DABISPI. I don't know, but you know
that that's a little bit too risky for my taste.
Jeremie Osmas for ninety dollars, also on this team.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: Ren Linn, he's back twenty nine. I like that one
as well. Alan Kesler for two dollars. I sneaky love
Alan Kesler this year. I bought some of his action
in a small package on Poker Steak. I think in
those events he's going to have a pretty big year.
So I like Alan Kesler a lot for two dollars.
Mike Lea is another one that sticks out on this team.
Eight dollars for him. Lee has been having some success
this year up in Canada in some events. Just question
mark on volume with him now. As I said, you know,
I didn't really feel motivated to do it this year.
I ultimately did not get into the twenty five K fantasy.
So I don't have all the research that a lot
of these guys might have done, because a lot of
my research as well is you know, reaching out to
all the different players saying like, hey, what's your schedule,
what's your schedule or just checking their social media and
trying to get a feel for it. So I may
just be being the unknown on things there. That team
rounds out with Jim Collapy, Brad Jansen, Ian Matakis, Nick
Waghenti Blades and Shades really like this team. Jesse lows
for sixty nine that could probably be upwards of eighty ninety.
Now he's not going to fire a ton of mixed,
you know, but listen, I think Jesse Mike Dabble, he's
a gambler, he loves it, and I think he might
also be someone who is very likely going to be
always at the WSIP. So I do like that pick.
Chris Hunikan for thirty five seems a little bit high
for me, but yeah, it is what it is.
Speaker 2: Jack Pan.
Speaker 1: Chinghai Jack Pan second or third on the PGT leodleboard.
He went for twelve dollars here, which I like. You know,
and some players were questioning if he's going to be
pulled away from the ws AP to play some of
the PGT stuff that's happening over at the studio. There
are ten events at the studio, you know. Some of
the players are like, oh, he's going to be gone
for two weeks playing that sort of stuff. I mean,
those are I believe, single day events. They're pretty fast,
they get done. And listen, if he wants to win
the PGT leadleboard, great, but there are thirty one PGT
qualifying WISOP events, so he can get a ton of
points just by saying at the w SP spite work
that was Matthew Wantman Bow Dang, Robert Wells, Pouna, Puncrie,
Jeremy Becker's on this team, Dylan Smith, Riot Turo Suzuki,
Renji Maut, David Peters. David Peters is a question mark
with everything that's been happening, you know, getting called out
by Dylan Lindy. You know, how much volume is he
going to play? And even if he is there playing volume,
how high is he going to play? Because if his
financials aren't in order, as is alleged by some out there,
then maybe he can't get the backing or he can't
sell pieces off at the higher buying stuff. You know,
I'm talking fifty K, one hund k two hundred fifty
k that sort of stuff. I also do think though
this is a bi loo opportunity on David Peters. I
mean It's kind of like the stock market, right, you
buy during the dips, like and I gotta think a
guy who might be having some trouble that needs to
make shit work. The pressure is on. I mean, it's
not that David Peters is not a talented poker player.
I think he's a very good, solid, technical, talented poker player,
all that sort of stuff. So I like the bilo
aspect here and getting number three bucks for Matthew Wantman.
I don't hate it. Glue Factory. That's Dan CBO's team.
He drafted Matthew Wantman, Chris Vich, Calvin Anderson, Dario Sammartino,
Maxim Pisa, Renko, Matt Vanger, and Tyler Phillips and he
drafted himself Dan cepl team seems fine, nothing special, nothing
really that sticks out. I just I just I'm not
a fan of the build. You know, when you get
four or five six players all kind of in that
thirty to fifty dollars range, you know, twenty to fifty
dollars range, all those middle guys. I'm very much a
Stars and Scrubs guy, as you guys know out there
who have listened for many years, and you know how
we always build our teams. We try and get one
or two heavy hitters, and then we fill everything out
with you know, cheap bargain buy lottery tickets. Eric Wasserson,
Victor blom Adam Hendrix, Isaac Hackson, Steven Chidwick, Shannon sure
Brian Yunan, huck Seed, John Turner, this this, I mean,
I can't jive with this team either. It's just very,
very questionable. I think the best one here is prob
I mean, I like Shannon Shore for eleven dollars, Victor
Bolm for sixty nine is probably gonna be fine as
long as Victor's playing a full schedule. But some of
the other ones, I just you know, I just question
huck Seed. I know, he made a big push last summer.
You know, he got picked up by Fenam Poker, he
was playing a big schedule, all that sort of stuff.
I mean, how much is he going to be playing
this year? But maybe Wasserton, you know, being in that circle,
that high stake circle, maybe he has some insight there.
All right, Now we get up to Ryan Steiner's team
State Kings. So it wasn't just Ryan Steiner, as you
guys will hear in the upcoming interview with him. It
was him, It was Jonahl Branch, Tyler Hancock, and then
I think one other person was involved. And forgive me
for not knowing that person's name, but Brian Rass for
ninety seven, David odib Bigger for sixty one. So those
are your big guns. Feels a little pricey on Brian Rast.
It's a volume thing with him. Just need to make
sure that he's out there playing every single day and battling,
because if he is, then Rast he's one of the
absolute best to ever do it. But I will say
that if I think that that might be slightly overpriced.
David Baker odb our guy at sixty one, I think
it's underpriced. And listen, is odb going to be in
the twenty five k no limits and plos, the fifty
k's the hunter k's the two fifty k highly likely?
Speaker 5: No, But.
Speaker 1: He's one thousand percent going to be at the divisity
every single day. He's going to be nowhere else nobody
loves it more. So I gotta put him at the
top of the heart rangings. Just absolutely have to. And
like I just think he's in a really, really good spot,
you know.
Speaker 2: To me, ODB.
Speaker 1: I mean, and listen, I'm biased. That's my guy. But
he's gonna show up every single day and play what
is his A game. Now, you can argue that his
A game might not be the best a game that
there is in poker, but that's fine because a lot
of times people are fluctuating between their A game and
their D game or maybe their F game, like you know,
depending on the day or depending on what's happening. Right, So,
but somebody that just shows up every single day freaking
loves the grind owns it and you know, plays their
best game no matter what, no matter if he's zero
for fifty in the summer or if he's smashing everything
in his one five bracelets like, he's gonna be doing
his damn thing. Now. The rest of this team and
you guys are for sure gonna understand why I love
this team. Steven Song for eighteen, that's our guy. Now.
Supposedly he's not playing as big of a schedule this year,
but it doesn't matter. He'll probably still hit three or
four field bonuses. John Reardon, the King, the King himself
for twelve dollars. That's a freaking steal. What the hell
are these people doing.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 1: The thing with Weird is that his price got a
little bit out of whack because of how much he
smashed it for us. So now it's kind of coming
back down to the earth over correcting the other day.
He's definitely worth more than twelve dollars. He's another guy
who's going to be at the sip every single freaking day.
And John is very very very good. Nick Seward for
nine dollars, very good. Ethan Yao aka Rampage for a buck,
Brandon Shields for a buck, Michael Wang for a buck.
Those are great one dollar flyers, one dollar lottery tickets.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Ethan yoo Is he's a blaster. If he gets hot early,
he might just fire literally everything. Brandon schiels I played
with him a bit, very very good player. Michael Wang
also a beast as well. But enough of what I'm
saying about this team. Let's let's hear from Ryan Steiner,
a rookie to the twenty five K Fantasy Draft. Let's
hear from him right now. All right, Ryan Steiner, you
just wrapped up your team. You just told me before
I hit record that you feel really.
Speaker 2: Good being rookies.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I wanted to ask you about first
time here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you feel wrapping things up?
Speaker 6: Little nervous up front? Like our first couple bids, we
were trying to feel it out a little bit, and
I think we went a little heavy on our first
couple guys. But looking back, I'm thrilled with all eight
players that we got.
Speaker 1: This is a team that I look at and I say,
if I were to construct the team, I would build
it like this. I have played this many times and
I like the stars and scrubs. You know, two big guys,
a bunch of cheap guys. I'm partial to Stephen Song.
Great pick there, John Reordan. We coined him, we coined
him the King. So you got the King. I mean,
this is a great build. Now, how do you land
on someone like a Brandon Shields?
Speaker 6: He was one that so I've got four of us
on the team. It was me, Tyler Hancock, Stephen Jones,
Jonah Lebranch. The four of us were all in on
this equally. He was a name that independently both me
and Jonah and Steven were like, here, this should be
a sleeper for a dollar, and we all like kind
of secretly circled him on our on our list and
was like, Okay, it's meant to be if all three
of us think that that's our next guy. I think,
if I remember correctly, he had eleven cashes last year
and then eleven the year before. He's a cash machine,
plays the right games.
Speaker 1: So I played with him last year deep in the main.
We made Day five together. He was, on my direct right,
a very good player, and you could also tell, like
some of the conversations after even following his social media,
he thinks pretty deeply about the game. He cares a lot,
which ultimately that's somebody you want on the team, right. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Steven and Stephen played with them in Prague just recently
and was like, yeah, he's he's a crusher, So if
we can get him for a dollar, get.
Speaker 1: Him, and we did. You mentioned being a little bit
nervous coming in, understandably so, But now that you've wrapped
things up, how do you feel thrilled?
Speaker 6: I think I'd put our team up against any of
the other teams out there. Obviously it's a crapshoot on
any of these teams who's going to do well and
who's not. But I think our team stacks up right
there with anybody in the room.
Speaker 1: All right, that was Ryan Steiner. I do love his team,
I really really do. So I'm sneaky hoping that that
one does well, although I really have no rooting interest among.
Speaker 2: This whole thing.
Speaker 1: Let's skip around a little bit here, Let's go to
So let's skip around to Dan Fleischman's team. So his
team is it's kind of always the same. He's always
going to try and get Michael de Grinderman's Rocky. He's
always going to try and get Phil Helmet. Phil Helm
we've walked in the room today, did his thing, you know,
I don't know. An hour or so into the draft
he comes walking in. It was a joke that oh hey,
hey we got to pause the draft, you know, royalties.
Here he's on his phone, he's doing his whole video
social media Instagram thing.
Speaker 2: He goes over to Fleischmann.
Speaker 1: He's like, they let they let you get me for
sixty six dollars. Yeah, they did, Phil, But you know
Phil for sixty six is he's a pretty good pick.
You know, he's gives Phil a ton of flack. I
think a lot of people in that room probably don't
like the way he plays, but he's the most decorated
w CIP player of all time. And say what you want,
Phil Helmuth knows how to get it done on the
w SIP stage. So Phil Hellmuth for sixty six bucks,
I can't hate it. The rest of this team, I
don't really know. Chance Cornick for thirty four feels a
little pricey given the volume. Chris Mormon for six, Paul
Volpi for five. Paul's always an interesting one supreme player.
I just you just never see him and then he
might show up for the WSP. So like again, it's
a it's a volume thing there. Christian Harder for six.
I actually really like that one. Eric said out for
a dollar. I mean Eric's been pretty vocal on the
whole tax thing and how he's not going to be
playing as much, so how much is he playing? And
then valtin Vorniku for a buck as well. On that team,
let's give over to trump Power great name. That's Gary
Benson's team. So he is the most expensive player drafted
this year, and that is Sean Deep for one hundred
and thirty three dollars, which I think is too cheap.
I mean there's twenty four teams in my opinion, you
need a horse, you need a stallion, and there is
no one better in this format than Shawn Deep. So
I was a bit surprised when he went for one
hundred and thirty three. And I know that David Baker
at one point I think he said won ten for
Deep when that bidding was happening, but then stopped or
didn't go much higher or whatever.
Speaker 2: So he was out.
Speaker 1: But like I mean, I would go to one ninety
three for Shawn Deep. I would, I honestly would, And
then I would just get dollar players. You know, I'm
pretty confident always in our long list of you know,
the bargain basement guys that we can just pull out
of the bin.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that these dollar players are the
ones that I would go with that are part of
this team. From Gary Benson, you know, uh changed Jeff Matdson.
She scooped Malcolm Trainor Yukizu, John Hennicking, and then Gary
Benson drafted himself. He always does this, so he drafts
a few of the Australian guys. I think as she
scooped as Australian Malcolm Trainers obviously Australian just won Aussie Millions.
He also won the Mystery Millions last year of the
year before or something like that. And then Gary Benson
is Australian as well.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't not a big fan of the rest of
that team, but you got the anchor in Sean Deep,
so that's all right. Who else we got was a
big one. Oh, Texas Mike Michael Monchak. He went to
his own team, Team Monchak aka Gators. They got Brandon
Wilson for fifteen, which I think is an absolutely incredible pick.
They got Texas Mike Michael Monchak for one hundred and
thirty dollars. That is absolutely insane. I'm honestly not sure
if it's more insane that Mike Monchak went for one
thirty on the high side or that Shawnde went for
one thirty three, which I think might be too up. Like,
I don't, I don't know which one is crazier. We
obviously know that Michael Monchak has put it out there
he's chasing Player of the Year. He's he'll he'll blast
everything up to the two fifty.
Speaker 2: I just I just.
Speaker 1: Don't know that feels like a lot. His brother's on
the team as well, Tyler Monchak. Tyler was in the
room drafting for this squad. Martin Zemani's on the team,
Michael Molnar, Ryan Lang, zach Esti's and Peter Krupa. And
I believe Peter because that says forty two dollars next
to him, So that must have been one of those
things where he's only had one player left to fill
gets him for forty two.
Speaker 2: And that's that.
Speaker 1: Just bouncing around here trying to figure out, Oh, there
was one other team that I liked. It was, oh,
Nick Verderramo's team, which is Nick Verdiramo combined with Jake Schwartz.
You know, I just I like the style of the build. Again,
stars and scrubs. They're stars. Nick Shulman for eighty nine dollars.
That is criminally f and cheap. Everyone that is way
too damn cheap. Eighty nine dollars. Eighty nine dollars for
Nick Sewan Nick Sholmans should be one twenty plus stone minimum,
one twenty plus Phil Ivy for eighty I like that
one as well, you know, as long as if Ivy's
going to be there, putting in reasonable volume, which we
have seen recently from him, then you know he's another
great player here. Brad Rubin for twenty one, that's a
good one. Jason Mercier for a dollar. I mean flyer there.
But I have had talks with Jason, and I think,
you know, as his kids are getting a little bit older,
he's going to be taking a little bit more time
to come out to the w SIP. I don't think
he's somebody who's ready at this time to come out
and play a whole summer, you know, but if you
can get ten to fifteen events out of him, you know,
Jason's a stud for buck. I'll take that flyer. Ryan
Reese for three dollars, just a volume thing with him.
Dan Shack for a dollar, you know he'll be there
blasting Gabrielle Androddy. I don't know volume for Androtti, you know,
I know he likes to play high stakes cash.
Speaker 2: I just don't know.
Speaker 1: Andrew Lichtenberger aka Lucky Chewy not a bad flyer there.
So I like this team. I like the build style.
I don't like it as much as Ryan Steiner's State
Kings team. You know, ultimately, with how the players shook out,
but you know, still, in my opinion, the right type.
Speaker 2: Of approach to a build.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go over and talk about Jeremy Becker's team
back office. I did an interview with Jeremy afterwards. You'll
hear from him in a minute. But this team is
just absolutely all over the place. So he comes out
and he gets Archer march Rosian first for thirty nine dollars,
which feels high. I asked him about it afterwards, and
he tells me that Archer has a piece of the team,
so he felt like he had to get him. I mean,
that's just that's flat out just not true. I have
had many players who have invested in our teams over
the years that they always tell me, you know, hey,
I'm a great buy. Hey I'm playing this great awesome.
I will try and get you if I think that
it's valuable and it fits into the bill. But I'm
not going to over extend myself and paint myself into
this this corner by doing that, which I think he
might have done a little bit there. Phil Sternheimer for
sixty five dollars is another pick, his second player, his
most expensive player. The problem with this one is that
Sternheimer is leaving when the WSB man events star like
July fourth or July third or whatever, he's leaving, so
he's out. You know, he's only going to be giving
you whatever five weeks. You know, now Sternheimer is a
very good player, and he's going to be playing all
the big buy and stuff, of course, but he kind
of you want that extra two weeks of volume, you know.
Ben You thirty seven, Aaron Coopan thirty four, Jason Daly
to twenty five, Ryut and Nikai six, Danny Wong three,
Ben Tollerene one. I'll tell you about Ben Tollerene in
a second. But the other Ben Ben You on this
team thirty seven dollars. He's always interesting because you know,
he's like a Paul Volpe. You know, you just don't.
You don't see this.
Speaker 2: Guy all year.
Speaker 1: So is he gonna play? Is he gonna be there?
What's his volume going to be?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: We obviously know that if Ben You is there and
if he's playing a big schedule, he's got to be
a great pick. He's a great player. He's had a
ton of success, He's scored a ton of points for
a lot of people, over the years in twenty five
K Fantasy, it's just a volume thing and you know,
where is he? What's he doing? Ben Tolerain is interesting
on this team because so they have to nominate a
player and they have one spot left. So they're kind
of freaking out on what to do. And I was
standing right there. Tim Duckworth is standing right there as well,
because he's doing the whole auctioneer thing. He's like, hey,
I need a player from you.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 1: Like they're firing into their group chat with their friends
trying to figure out a player.
Speaker 2: They don't really know what to do.
Speaker 1: Finally, they like they fire out Ben Toleraine's name, which
I don't think is the worst pick in the world
for a dollar, but I don't think that they wanted
to get stuck with him. And you know, Toleraine, at
the end of the day, if he can give you,
let's say, five to eight of the big big buy
and stuff, you know, twenty five K plus fifty K
plus that sort of stuff, I mean, he's the best
in the world when it comes to Nolan, mat Hold
and Plo like, so it can't be the worst thing.
I mean, I've seen worst picks. I mean, people have
literally drafted people that have not shown up for an
entire summer. So but the thing is with Toleraen is
that I'm I heard that he's just worried with playing
in the States and the whole new taxle on that
sort of stuff, so he might sit out. You know,
he's someone who's probably made way too much money in
his freaking career that he can just he can he
can sit out. So so that's that. Danny Wong, I guess, okay,
pick if he puts in volume, you know, just question
mark what type of volume we're going to get out
of Danny Wong. But very good player, you know, especially
in the mix game stuff.
Speaker 2: But enough for me.
Speaker 1: Let's let's hear from Jeremy Becker after the draft was
over all, right, Jeremy Becker, you just wrapped up your
team a little bit of a scramble at the end
there with the final pick of Ben Tolerain.
Speaker 2: How do you how do you feel though with your team?
Speaker 5: I think he's one of the I's not the best
player in the world, so I mean a dollar at
the end, we'll take it.
Speaker 2: What about the rest of your team?
Speaker 1: Archur march Rose and Phil Sternheimer some heavy hitters there.
Speaker 5: I really like our team honestly, especially our first four picks,
and then we're basically going for Gosto.
Speaker 2: Here at the end with our cheaper guys. Who's in
the Kai, who's in the kay? That's a great question.
Speaker 5: But my partner, who was watching the draft from home
deep diving, said we need this guy and I'm just
trusting him here, So let's go Ryuta.
Speaker 1: Can you make a lot of side bets when you
do this sort of thing or is it just in
the in the draft?
Speaker 2: And that's it.
Speaker 5: We made a few pre draft, got odds on a
couple because of our last place finish last year, and
we'll be looking a few more now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't believe people are giving you odds. It's
it's a vary incest.
Speaker 5: Come on, yeah, But I mean it's clear some people
are better prepared than others. I know, we really were
going hard this year in the lab. We thought we
were well prepared, but uh, shit kind of hit the
fan there at the end.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, as somebody who has done this draft before,
who was prepared honestly for months heading into every draft,
it always hits the fan. So it's always a scramble
at the end, and you can never control what people
are doing. So I heard you say, you know, you
ran one hundred simulated teams or whatever, but.
Speaker 2: It always falls apart.
Speaker 5: We ran over one hundred fake teams we put together
based on prices we thought everyone was going to go for.
And we had two one dollar guys that we were
getting one hundred percent of the time, and we didn't
get either of them.
Speaker 2: Who were they? I mean, if they got drafted, it's fine.
They have not been drafted.
Speaker 5: They had, well, then how did you not get them?
Speaker 1: So then so then that what that tells me is
that your final pick of Ben to Lorraine, you were
throwing it out for someone else to bid on him.
Speaker 5: No, we think he's one of, if not the best
player in the world.
Speaker 2: So we're all in.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I'm a little I'm breathless right now because
things don't always go to play. But you know what,
we got some guys who are going to be playing
in some big field stuff and we're out there that
field bonus.
Speaker 1: All right, that's Jeremy Becker. He's got his team. You
can sweat it back office. What's the name.
Speaker 5: Bowling became a big thing here in Vegas, and someone
started making lines on people's bowling skills, and uh, they
were in the back office making the line. So there's
a little homage to them. All right.
Speaker 1: Well, best of luck to you with your fantasy quest
this summer.
Speaker 2: Hopefully a little bit better than last place.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you take some down some of those side bets,
specifically punishing the people who gave you odds, because that
just seems absurd. Yeah, fuck josh K We're coming for him,
all right. So that was Jeremy Becker JBEX. Hopefully we
get to catch up with him a few times throughout
the summer. He told me after we spoke, I was like,
you know, hey, are you getting started tomorrow? Right away
He's like, I haven't even looked at the schedule, Donnie,
I don't know what's going on. I'm just gonna you know,
I'm gonna wake up in the morning, I'm gonna look
at the app I'm gonna see what's what's happening, and
I'm gonna go down and I'm gonna play. I mean,
that's how Jeremy Becker operates. Team Lady Gaga ren Linn
is back another team where I really really really love
the bill. This is full on stars and scrubs. This
is this just speaks to me URI's Eveleski aka, You're
a nerd guy, ninety bucks, Alex Fox in seventy nine,
Clemens Reuter twenty four, and then the other five players.
We got a dollar, a dollar, a dollar, a dollar,
a dollar. Everyone else is a dollar now. The only
issue that I have with these other players, it's not
really an issue, it's just a me thing. I don't
know who they all are. Renland does this every year.
He picks some Asian players that no one else knows.
He is tapped into that part of the world, that
poker playing community. He knows the volumes these guys are
gonna play, he knows how big they're gonna play. He
has some insight into how good they are. So he's
got all these players. He's got John Lamb, Choi, Anson Sang,
which we've heard of, Anson saying, yes, chong Jiang Yang
have not heard of him. Junabara had some success, I
believe in super higher roleble bubble did I believe. I
wouldn't exactly call out success, but you know, still had
a deep run. June Wang is the other one, So
I just don't know. I'm unfamiliar with some of these players.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: When we won it a couple of years ago, we
were going back and forth at the top of the
leader board with Renland's team with Lady Gaga. I like
Redlands strategy. I think he has it dialed into the
stars and scrubs. So I would be fearful of this squad,
especially because we don't know these players that much, at
least I don't, so, I mean, they could be absolute killers.
They probably are freaking killers. Andrew Brown's team, Brown Dog,
this is an example of a team that I just
don't really like. Arthur Morris thirty one, Max Coleman fifty eight,
nik Wa Ganti thirty seven, Scott Bowlman thirty five. I
just don't like that middling type of bill justin Saliva
twenty two. That's just that's just not my my thing.
There was one other pick somewhere. Where is it? Oh,
Daniel Legrand who won sixteen. So Daniel drafted himself. I
might as well talk about Daniel's team. This is, you know,
the draft that he hosts at the end of the day.
So Daniel drafts himself for one hundred and sixteen. What
I thought was interesting is somebody threw him out to
start for fifty and then somebody said one hundred. Now
he's obviously gonna get up there. This is Daniel Legrann.
We get it. But when you go from fifty to
one hundred and he ultimately settles on one sixteen, could
there have been you know, a couple bucks saved here
along the way if it didn't jump from fifty to
one hundred, you know, that would just be my question mark.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 1: He drafted himself, he drafted his buddy Josh Aria, he
drafted Ben Lamb. At that point he was joking that
those three will take on any other three people in
the room in golf. But we're not playing golf, Daniel,
we are playing poker. Dong Chen, that is somebody who
I believe ren linn throughout. And then Daniel is basically like, well,
if ren Lin's throwing out these players that I view
as random Asian players, I'm just gonna bid on them
because he knows something that I don't. So that's how
he ended up with Dong Chan. He's got Nick Papillo,
he's got Ellie Lezro, he's got Brent Kenny's got Jason Kohon.
I kind of like this team lukewarm. I'm lukewarm on
this team. Okay, that's where I'm at with that team.
But the one pick that I want to talk about
was where is where is John Rasner? He's on Team
Norri's team. Now this is another one stars and scrubs.
Jal Vieira one oh one, John Rasner eighty six. I
think John Raysner is going to be a steal at
eighty six dollars. Maybe I'm wrong there. Maybe I'll be
left with the egg on my face when it's all
said and done at the end of the summer. But
the thing with Rasner in recent years is he hasn't
put in full volume. He's like made some different trips
out here, that sort of stuff. Last year he made
his first trip out here, got off the plane, registered
a tournament, won the damn thing. But this year he
put out on social media, he rented a house in
Las Vegas. He's going to be here all summer and
he's going to be fired. He's someone to me who
is likely one WSP focused. He plays all the games,
he plays a wide variety of buyings. He's a very
very good player. He's someone who you know, I know,
it's going to be hard to contend with the people
who already went to WSP Europe, namely Sean Dee, But
when it comes to Player of the Year, like I
could see John Raisner being right up there in the mix.
So I really do like that pick for eighty six.
I think he's more of a you know, closer to
one hundred dollars player if you get the volume, and
we're getting the volume from him this year. Also on
this team, Justin Zakia dollar, Michael Norri a dollar, Sean
Buchanan two dollars, Mike Madison seven dollars, Dara Tarapoor one dollar.
Dara played, he played some of the mixed stuff at
the Poker Gris studio, you know, made some runs, you know,
and Jordan Siegel as well. So this is this is
really I mean, outside of Justin Zachi, this is a
mixed game heavy team here for sure. But I do
like the Stars and Scrubs build. Let's go, I mean,
let's go to David Baker's team, and then this is
the last one that we'll just touch on here. So
David Baker's team, Banana so it was I believe drafting
was David Baker, of course, and then also Mark Gregorich
his good friend was alongside him. So they got Scott
sever for seventy nine. That's their big gun, their second
most expensive player, Marco Johnson fifty one. Marco Johnson Hill.
Hear me talk about with odb in the interview in
a second. But Marco is somebody who I never really know,
you know, put him in the class of a ben U,
of a Paul Vopie, Like I don't know the volume
for these guys because I don't see them really playing
outside of the World Series of Poker every single year.
That said, much like you know, Daniel looks at ren
Lynn and when ren Linn throws a player out that
Daniel doesn't know about, Daniel says, I got to jump
on that player. I always look at David Baker and say, oh,
there's certain players I know he's very very good friends
with that if he's in on them, then that should
tell you something. And Marco Johnson is one of those players.
He's also got David Coleman and Danny Tang on his
team that checks the high roller boxes. Brian Hastins, Brad Owen,
Lawrence Brand and Iowa Kiara. As you'll hear from David Baker.
You know, he talked about why he chose those specific players.
So you know, overall, I kind of like this build.
I like the top end, the top four sever Coleman, Johnson, Tang,
you know, the guys that cost all more than one dollar,
the bottom ones, the one dollar players. I might have picked,
you know, some different one dollar players. But I get
the strategy, and you're always gonna need a lot of
luck when it comes to the one dollar players. Right again,
those are your lottery tickets. But you know, let's hear
from David Baker. Let's hear what he has to say.
He talked a lot about his team, his build, his
whole philosophy behind fantasy poker. All right, I'm here with
David odib Baker just wrapped up another edition of the
twenty five K Fantasy Draft. How are you feeling about
your squad?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm extremely happy. I got a lot of the
guys that were on my target list. And uh yeah,
I'm curious what you think. I know you're the king
of Fantasy.
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 3: I can't believe he didn't have a team this year.
But yeah, I mean I'm very happy. I don't know.
I mean, we can go through the players.
Speaker 1: If you want, but yeah, Scott Severs seventy nine, he's
your big gun. Second to him, not second that you drafted,
but second in price.
Speaker 2: Marco Johnson, who you're friends with.
Speaker 1: Marko was always a little bit of an enigma to
me because I just don't know what he might be
playing every single year.
Speaker 2: But I would rely it.
Speaker 1: If I was in this room drafting, I would say, oh, well,
if Odb's in, like you got to be in them.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So you know, on Marco, he's staying at my house
this summer and he's playing everything. So you know, Mark
is one of the best players, and he's one of
my best friends. He's the one guy I talked poker with,
so obviously I love the guy and he's you know,
I respect his game, and yeah, so I mean I'm
thrilled obviously to Marco on my team. He's just a
consistent producer. I mean, he's like thirteenth on the all
time points list and he didn't even play like several
years that much because of tournaments. Sever he was one
of one of the people in our a bucket, and
when all the A buckets started to go off, we
were like I was, I was like, we're fine, We're fine,
We're gonna get Sever, We're gonna get Sever. And then
all the guys went off that we didn't like quite
as much as Sever, so I didn't want to like
bid on them because I just wanted to get Sever.
I think it's a big redemption year for him, and
we were prepared to spend over one hundred and getting
him for seventy nine, which I think was kind of
insane considering I think he was the last eightier player.
So yeah, thrilled to have him.
Speaker 1: Obviously, you got David Coleman, high roller player, he's been
on fire lately. You got Danny Tang as well, another
high roller player coming off.
Speaker 2: A huge win at Tradon.
Speaker 1: I want to specifically ask you about Brian Hastens because
he's someone who years ago was like almost guaranteed a
bracelet a year, and for whatever reason, has fallen off
of the radar of the people in the draft room.
You know, I don't know why, but Stinger's a crusher, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean the thing that's scary about Brian is the
fact that he tweeted out that he wasn't playing some
of the bigger events, that he was going to play
the one K to three K stuff. But one thing
I know about the series is there's people who love
it and there's people who you can just count on
are always going to play more than they say. And look,
I'm welling to gamble on talent. Obviously, I wish that
he had a bigger edgile planned, but look, when you're
as talented as Brian, you know, I'm sure that he'll
find his way into enough big events and hopefully he
just gets off to a good start and plays early.
And you know, he's the type of guy that really
can win and we all know that the points are
up top. And he's also if he's going to play
the smaller events, he has like opportunities. He at field Bonus,
he plays an a lemon, he plays mits, and he
wins when he plays. So yeah, I mean, I'm happy
to get I'm happy to get Hastings. He wasn't initially
on the target list just because of the schedule, but
you know, if we were going to be able to
get him for single digits, then that was fine. And
obviously get him for dollars more than good. So yeah,
I mean I'm a couple of the guys that we
got at the end, Lawrence, Brant and Noya. I think
if people they are kind of people that don't really
hang out with a lot of the people that are
in this room, so people are scared.
Speaker 2: To draft him.
Speaker 3: You know, I got information on both that they playing,
and I mean Lawrence is an absolute killer and Noyo
when he plays, he's a killer. And he told me
he was playing all the ten cases. So yeah, I'm
excited to have him and Brad Owen. Look, we know
that he's good in No Limit and he's just getting
better in Mix and he's super focused on having a
good series. So I've been hanging out with him a
little bit. He's been playing my No Limit cash game
and we've been talking a lot, and I think he's
ready to prove that he belongs. So I'm willing to
gamble for a dollar that he you know, that he
can make the switch.
Speaker 2: Any regret having twenty eight dollars left over.
Speaker 3: I always have money left because the way that I
play it is I have this group of people that
I want and my whole goal is to get more
money than everybody else at the end of the draft,
so that I can hand pick my last three selections.
So I'm totally fine with it because I would have
been willing to go twenty on Lawrence Brant, I would
have been willing to go ten on Owen. So yes,
I ended up with the money, but if they would
have just come out earlier, then once people saw me
bidding on Lauren Sprans, he would have gone for fifteen
or twenty anyway, So I think it's totally fine. It's
the way that I play. I understand that, like having
the hammer at the end of the draft is worth something.
Rend and Bruski was a guy I really wanted, and
so I wanted to keep the hammer for him, but
unfortunately there was one team who had more, so they
had the hammer, but I was willing to spend my
thirty dollars on him. So that was kind of the plan,
is to get everybody to get the roster spots filled
or get below my max bid so that I could
max out on Rennon or Lawrence Brandt or there was
one other guy that I really liked to I can't
remember that we'd ended up not getting We also Ariel
Montel was another guy that we were kind of looking at.
Nicholas Milburn. That's another one. You guys had him last year.
He was at sixteen, so I mean, we could have
easily fit him in and gotten him. But I think
if we would have done that, it gives a really
good team in the Dinkers the Hammer over us. And
once we start throwing out Laurence Brant and Nooya and
people like that, they're just gonna top us on all
of them because they know that, like if we're throwing
them out. So I kind of sacrificed Milgram to be
able to get the other three. If Laurence, Brant or
Noya would have come out first, I would have sacrificed
one of them to get the other three.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a three for one thing.
Speaker 3: That's kind of how I think about it is if
I can just have the Hammer, I can get three
guys I want, rather than than spending it online.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of the.
Speaker 3: Way I approach it. I know that it looks funny
that we have twenty eight dollars left, and it's like, oh, well,
you could have taken hoste things and that, and like
a thirty dollars guy, But that's not really how it works,
because like you're just not going to get your bottom guys.
If you have a dollar left, you're left just throwing
out guys and then seeing if anybody bits a dollar
on them. And it's like Ben Tullohan, great player, but
like I don't really want a guy who's playing like
five or six events, like he only really plays the
high rollers and that you know, when you throw out
a guy like that, then you're kind of at the mercy.
So Danny Wong was another one that we could have taken.
I love Danny, he's a good friend of mine, but
kind of didn't want to get into bidding war again.
So that's just how I play the game. It's not
necessarily right or wrong, but I don't like to be
at the mercy of the dollar at the end. I
want to I want to be able to put the
hammer out when people you know, the people who had
who had money left were Phil Sternheimer very smart, Josh
Kay very smart. Like these are the guys who continually
win in this thing, so I want to be able
to top them when the best values come out.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow the world tis the poker starts you love it,
maybe more than anyone.
Speaker 2: Can you believe it's here for another year.
Speaker 3: It's weird. This one kind of like snuck up on me,
and I don't know, it felt like, yeah, it's it
didn't didn't feel like it's here.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, I'm excited.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow I'm gonna play the five K No Limit and yeah,
I mean this year, I'm gonna be playing a little
bit more No Limit. Obviously, I'll play all the mixed
and you know, I'm bracelet hunting and all that stuff,
but I'm going to try to prioritize some No Limit
stuff over the mix. But you know, when we're in
there and I'm starting at one hundred person field and mix,
or I could go register my fourteenth bullet of the
Milling Maker, you know, I'll probably end up just just
putting the ten nins in the next But yeah, I mean,
I love it. I love to compete, and I love
everything that does. I love what my Fantasy League has
brought to the overall experience. You know, I'm getting NonStop
techs add me as bonus players, like one hundred and
fifty freaking bonus players this year.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: You love it, and you know, I'm looking forward to
listening to you and Tim talk talk poker every day.
Speaker 6: On the on the way.
Speaker 1: Last question here a pretty simple one. How many teams
in ODB Fantasy this year?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm hoping we I'm hoping we get a thousand,
but I don't know. I feel like that's probably a
little ambitious. I think last year we had eight seventy,
so I'll take the over on that. But I think
we've grown every year for ten straight. So if we
don't grow, I'm not going to consider a failure. I
think like at some point like it has to like
make a little tickdown.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 3: It feels like there's as high interest as ever. So
I mean I'll predict that, you know, we get eight eighty,
which will be a record.
Speaker 1: And that was the man himself o dB. Arguably nobody
loves it more than David O dB Baker, and that's
going to do it for the twenty five K Fantasy Draft.
I didn't hit on every team. I know, I started
kind of going through, you know, a lot of the
teams at the start. You know what I liked, what
I didn't like. You know, there's some some interesting teams
out there, some interesting bills. There's there's a lot of
names on here that obviously there's a lot of names
that I recognize that we all recognize, but there's also
a lot of that I don't recognize at all, And
it'll be interesting to see what sort of results these
people put up. One, but also two, you know, if
you're seeing them every single day. For example, you look
at Andrew Brown's team and I see, I see ray Fishman,
that might as well be create a player for all
I know, no disrespect to mister Fisherman out there, but
I don't know who this is and what type of volume.
So when we're walking around the first week and we
finally get eyes on ray Fishman, you know, you see somebody,
then we're going to see every single day, because if
you don't see them every single day, like that's an
issue to me when you're building out teams. We had
a bunch of players last year, or a few players
last year that they didn't put in the volume that
we had anticipated that they would put in. Ultimately, that
bitteress th in the ass. So you know, we'll see,
h we'll see how it goes, but it's gonna be
a fun summer. As I said at the top of
the show, you can get all the information as it
relates to twenty five K fantasy over all on twenty
five k fantasy dot com. If you are on x
then I would highly encourage you to follow at twenty
five K Fantasy. We'll talk about it on this podcast
every so often. Maybe not every single day, but you know,
a few times a week as we go throughout the summer.
The big thing though, the summer is here, it is
WSOP season. On Tuesday, May twenty sixth is when everything
kicks off. I believe it starts with the mini Mystery Millions,
which is gonna be an absolute freaking gong show. Five
hundred and fifty dollars buy in you know, you know
mystery bounty format, Like that's just gonna be absolutely freaking wild.
Hopefully you guys hear from me just about every single day.
Hopefully I have some new hats for you this year.
I'm gonna try and make that happen as well as always,
please do like, subscribe, rate, review, leave comments, whatever you're
gonna do. I know this podcast is audio only, but
the plan is to do video podcasts as well. You'll
be able to find those on the Poker Go YouTube channel,
in addition to the audio podcast wherever you listen to
your podcast. Enough rambling from me, though it's approaching midnight,
I want to get some sleep because tomorrow, on Tuesday,
it all begins, boys and girls, and if you're out
here this summer, come say hi. I love to meet
the listeners out there. I absolutely love the podcast, love
doing it, and hopefully you guys love listening. So that's
gonna do it for me. Donnie Peters and I will
talk to you next time.
Speaker 4: Ja