Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the
Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donnie Peters. I am
joined by Tim Duckworth. It's been a minute a month
March second, our last show. Partly laziness, partly me being
on my deathbed, partly work, partly just a whole bunch
of excuses.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I think it's majority work. I think
we can say that it's been pretty yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we should still hop on during work because
this is the fun part of work, you know. So,
I mean, the work is largely fun, I would say,
but you know, this I think is certainly the most
fun aspect of it all. But you know, we've been
letting the fans down. I've seen some Twitter message places
I'm hitting me uh on purpose? Yeah, I mean, what
are you gonna do? We apologize, but we're gonna be
We're gonna be coming in hot for the rest of
I'll say what twenty twenty five, well guaranteed three months,
because we're gonna go strong from now until like the
end of the WSP. Of course, obviously WSP is going
to be the biggest and the best, of course, I'm
looking forward to that. But we had a whole lot
of stuff to catch up on, you know, because last
last time that we talked on the podcast, I should say,
we talked about how the PGT Mixed Game series was
doing great. It was a couple of events into that series.
That series then wrapped up. We had Super High Rollable
Mixed Games wrapped up, We had the PGT PLO series
wrapped up, and then just recently the twenty twenty two
or twenty twenty two, Wow, I'm taking it real far back,
twenty twenty five US Poker Open was completely so quick
rundown of what we're going to hit on. Shannon Shore
winner of the US Poker Open, Jesse Lonis, winner of
the PGTPLO series, chatt Ea Sledge winner Super High Roller
Bowl Mixed Games, and Chino Reem won the PGT Mixed
Games and he did so for a second time. We
also have our giveaway contest thing and because it's been
a while, Tim has organized two code words for all
the listeners out there, So stay tuned throughout this episode
on when those code words will drop. If you want
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All right, first up, we're gonna go in order of recency,
so we'll hit on Shannon Shore winning the twenty twenty
five US Poke Robin. And it was one hell of
a dramatic finish because this guy needed to win the
final event, the twenty five K Championship event, and he
did it to overtake Matthew Woman. Now at the end,
it was sure versus Nacho Barbero, and once it got
down to those two, Matthew Woman was out. Correct, correct, Well, listen,
I already ran through all the tibriggers and.
Speaker 3: He was out, Yes, but he could still get a
little bit of a little bit of a rebate.
Speaker 1: What do you mean, Oh, the tiebreakers determined the champion,
but you got the money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we split the money, so he could have split
the money with Nacho if Nacho had emerged.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I see what you did there. Well it
doesn't matter because Nacho blew it in the end. Did
you see the final hand? By the way, I.
Speaker 3: Saw the clip on social I was in the room
when it happened, and we were locking in for a
long heads up battle, me and now photographer Antonio, and
you know, all of a sudden it was over.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what Nacha was doing, to
be honest, just yeah, you know, I think I think
somebody at some point asked Nacho. I can't remember if
it was on stream or if I was in the
room and I heard it, or maybe it was on
day one during the commentary that I was doing. I
can't remember exactly, but somebody asked him like if he's
a like a field player or like a theory player,
gto player, And I can't remember what he said, but
I immediately thought, he's obviously a field player, yes, like
you know.
Speaker 2: Come on, I same as football people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I don't think he had any time extensions
on that final h okay, I mean he called it
off with Ace High and a two pair for Shannon Shore.
It did seem like one of those like I'm going
to try and make a sick call, read the guy's
soul type of stuff, but without any time extensions. I mean,
somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't
think he had any. And he didn't think that long.
He thought maybe twenty seconds or so and then called
it off. I mean didn't really feel like there was
a lot of bluffs there. It was a pretty dry
board overall. So yeah, anyway, it doesn't matter. Let's get
back to the real story here, which is Shannon Show winning.
Shannon Shore won it. He played tremendous. I thought was
extremely locked in from late on day one of the
tournament and then all throughout the final table. Obviously, you know,
playing with Nacho Barbero heads up, he was the beneficiary
of Nacho calling with Ace High on the final hand.
And yes, but you know, I thought Shore was very
much in control throughout the entire I'll say last forty
percent of the tournament. You know, even if he wasn't
the chip leader, let's say, you know, he was doing
extremely well. I think it was sure that also busted
Jeremy Becker on day one, which gave him a nice
boost when he had aces and a great spot for
a squeeze. Becker had flattered in position against somebody else's
rais with ace queen suited. Becker then back jammed. Obviously
the aces make the call, and you know that was that.
But Shore finishes the series with two cashes. He won
both times that he cashed, he won a veent number
five a ten K event. Seventy six entries in that one,
two hundred and twenty K is what Shore won. And
then he won the twenty five K championship event for
five hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars. And in that
championship event there were seventy three entries just quickly. Why
did that one ten kit have such a small field?
Speaker 3: Well, there was a little bit of an overlay of
the win that may have led to that. I think also,
you know, people get a little burned out, take a
Saturday off watch some I know baseball, some playing base
It was also a big UFC caught on, so I
knew we lost. At least one player had told us
he's not coming on this Saturday. So I think there's
just a lot of little things. I think it's just
more five days in a row, take a day off,
get also Sunday off, and I think it you know,
apart from those numbers, he saw the Monday rebound with
that record breaking field size, so I think the day
off's still are positive for what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1: So Shannon Shore wins that final event to win the
twenty twenty five US Poke Ropean title. He also moves
up to ninth on the season long PGT Lead Award.
This season on the PGT, he has five cashes, two wins,
and he's won nine hundred and thirty seven thousand, five
hundred dollars seven hundred and forty points is what he has.
He's really having an outstanding year. I know our season
is a little bit weird, I guess because we start
a little bit later with the January stuff still wrapping
up from the previous season. But it sure's best year ever.
If you want to look at Hendimov, his best year
was way back in two thousand and six. Is actually
that was his first year with a recorded cash on Hendon.
He won one point six two to two million dollars
this year already he's won one point nine two seven million,
so very much on his way to having an incredible
career year. He has four PGT wins this year now
to this season, as I mentioned, and the other two
came during the Last Chance Series. He won two events
during that Last Chance Series. In twenty twenty five, Suore
has five total wins. In addition to those four PGT wins,
he won the WSP Circuit main event at Horseshoe Las
Vegas in March for two hundred and seven thousand dollars.
And then another note is that he has seven six
figure scores in twenty twenty five. So Shannon Shore is
absolutely positively on freaking fire. And I just want to
say that if you haven't read it yet, there's a
great feature piece on Shannon that's done by Lance Bradley
that came out not too long ago. It's on Lance's substack.
It's called The Overlay. Theoverlay dot substack dot com, I
believe is the URL. It's not just about poker. I mean,
obviously Shannon's a poker player, so that's the backdrop of everything,
but it really is about Shannon's personal growth. You know,
giving up alcohol, which he has done for the large majority.
I don't think he's one hundred percent cut it out.
Like for example, last night he was at Stony's after
they won. That was all over my Instagram feed.
Speaker 2: Shadow was invited to that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, I'm sure anyone can shown.
Speaker 2: Up turned it down. I was not.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was I mean I used to
go to stonies all the time, like back in the day.
I didn't know that was still a thing.
Speaker 3: But I guess it is different than when I remember,
which is a different location.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that if.
Speaker 1: You went to the one that was in kind of
that strip mall, like across from the apartment complex the Manhattan,
it's no longer there. Actually it's actually in town Square.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: But the the the overlay feature that Lance Bradley did
with Shannon Yeat, it's not just about Poe Gray really
is about his personal growth over the last I'll say
a year or so, giving up alcohol, being more present
with his family. He's you know, really kind of gotten
back into like health and mental well being and all
of that. Talks about how everything that he's been doing
has really helped him play the best poker of his life.
It's a pretty inspiring read, and you know, it can
only it only like Bode's weight to like how well
he's performed this year. You know, I read that when
that came out from Lance, and I was like, oh, like,
you know, Shannon's in a great headspace right now, and
then all of a sudden boom, It's like it's all
kind of makes sense. So of course, you know, I
know people can sit out there and say, oh, well,
it's just variance. You know, Shan's been doing this forever.
Eventually it's going to click, yes, oh yeah, sure, but
you know it is kind of just weirdly coincident all
that as he's been working on himself from a health aspect,
from a mental aspect, all that sort of stuff, and
now this is all coming together on the poker felt.
You know that says something to me. So if you
guys want to check that out, you can over att
theoverlay dot substack dot com. Again, that was by Lance
Bradley who wrote that piece. All right, so Shannon Chars
the winner. I'm going to get into a bunch of
questions with you, mister Commish about the USPO. First, up.
You know, his title came right down to the wire
final tournament, final heads upmatch. You know how special was
that to see it end in such a dramatic fashion.
Before you answer, I will say that I always wanted
to come down to the final tournament and I know
you know that. So from your perspective, is that also
the feeling?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I agree, it's always you know, you don't want
it over before the finale starts, so having it come
down to that last event is always great. You know,
normally it does involve someone winning to knock the knock,
you know, the current leader off, so a lot of
pressure on those guys. You know, personally would have probably
preferred a few more sweats once they hit the money
instead of just Shannon and Nacho. But you know, well
there were a couple I think.
Speaker 1: They've they bombed out before the final table.
Speaker 2: They bummed, so it would fir.
Speaker 1: Sorry there was there was Eric Blair was the other one,
and the right before the money was Brandon Wilson.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I would love one day for us to get
a sweat where everyone at the final table could possibly
win with certain scenarios, just make a make you know,
double down on the ICM implications with some you know,
massive Golden Eagle implications. But yeah, it is always good
to at least have a sweat to the very end
and get that dramatic finish between the two.
Speaker 1: And let's not overlook how good Matthew Wantman's series was.
He had one win, three cashes. I think he had
a first and a second, was.
Speaker 2: It, yes, first on the runner up finish, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he cashed for five hundred and twenty eight
thousand dollars total, So very good showing for Matthew Wantman.
He was hoping to claim his second series title. He
previously won a PGTPLO series, so he would have been
a two time series winner on the PGT had he
done that. But of course, as we've been talking about,
Shannon Shore was able to overtake him. Shore has been
one of the most consistent performers for what seems like forever,
you know, like nearly two decades. I remember I mentioned
that two thousand and six was his first year that
I saw in Hendon that he has a recorded cash.
This is his first major PGT series win. You know,
what does it mean to you? Now? The USBO group
and has some really good names attached to it. Stephen
Chidwick is a winner, David Peters won it twice, Sean Winter,
Martin Zemani or Rob Zobian, Like, what does that say
to you as the commission.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think with the PGT, we've always been known
as being this high role of circuit with the biggest
and best names in poker, right the Stephen Chidwicks, the Nogrando's,
Nick Shulman, all these guys that play uber high steaks,
and I think from the tourist perspective, we want to
be more well rounded and we've done quite a great
job of doing that. See players that you know, aren't
these uber high stakes guys win series titles, you know,
may start attracting more people to come play our events.
It's not just dominated, you know, by the by the Foxes,
It's not dominated by Nogrando. We can see these players that,
you know, if we talk about average bayings aren't as
high as as those guys you mentioned, or previous USPR
champions Chidwick and Peters and Sean Winter. So from the
tours perspective, it's good to see some of these new
faces in a way win series championships, win just PGG
titles in general.
Speaker 1: Yeah, along those lines, I would probably throw Michael Rosido
in there. He won an event during the twenty twenty
five US Poker Open. I know Frances Anderson didn't win,
but he took third place in the first event. He
was out there competing, so it's good to see him.
We saw Nick Seward make some runs, so he's he's
out there battling. Neil Warren is like the new new
guy on the block.
Speaker 2: Saw him bucks today.
Speaker 1: Actually, oh yeah, he's definitely really like he really wants
a title, like he wants to get not not like
a series title first, I mean, he wants to get
a trophy first. And then so he's out there gunning.
You know, Andrew Mourno's out there gunning. So it is
cool to see Matthew Watman is like he's now arrived, yes,
but he was. He was one of those guys before.
You know Shannon Shore as well, not that Shannon Show
hasn't been around for a long time, but now Shannon
Shore being the US pore Open champion and performing on
this type of stage against this type of competition, you know,
he's very much in that group. So I echo what
you're saying, it's really kind of cool to see all
these these players doing so well. So do you think
I mentioned he has seven hundred and forty points on
the season, ninth on the PGT leader board. Let's do
a little bit of projecting here. You know, how do
you think the rest of his twenty twenty five PGT
campaign is going to play out? Do you think he's
a lock to make it into the top forty and
then qualify for the million dollar Championship?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, let's I want to look at his
kind of past history at the PGT. He's best he
was twenty twenty two season where he had nine hundred
and eleven points. So he's already trending to have his
best year probably last ye seven ninety one. Obviously he
won those last two. He won those two PGT Lost
Chance events to get him in to the PGT Championship.
So for this year he's got seven hundred and forty points.
We know he's playing the WSP, we have pokem Masters,
we have all these events here in Las Vegas where
he doesn't really need to travel. I'm sure he can
pick up another one hundred two hundred points with not
too much trouble, and yeah, I would say that. You know,
I think we discussed it a little bit on that
day one bonus coverage commentary that you know, we always
talk about a thousand points being a threshold players should target.
I think this year is going to come down just
a little bit. Maybe it's nine hundred, maybe it's even
eight hundred, just with some of the rule changes we've made.
So I think he's basically I don't want to say
he's in, don't want to say he's locked in, don't
want him to go on a holiday for eight months,
but I think he's well.
Speaker 1: He once to show up to the WSP and I
think he went like zero for fifty six or something.
Speaker 3: Well, let's not hope that happens. So yeah, I think
he's probably pretty safe. It's more of a it's more
going to be a where he finishes in that top forty,
and hopefully it is he stays in the top ten.
Speaker 1: Looking at the PGT leader, where there's something I think
you should add, you should add a points per cash
is like, Okay, I guess he's got seven hundred and
forty points. He's in ninth, but he only has five cases. Yeah,
you know, everyone kind of around him or above him
has more cashes, you know, so they're they're doing it
with a little bit more volume, where Sure has proven
so far that it's like when he gets into the money,
it's probably going to be a top refinish, maybe even
a win, right, you know, I think that's just kind
of cool to see. Whereas you have someone like, you know,
let's look at Nick Shulman for example, not that Nick
Shulman hasn't had plenty of deep runs, but he's still
void of a win, yep. And he has you know,
he's he's he has the most cashes. Yeah, he's tied
for the most final tables, but he has fourteen cashes,
So he's doing it a little bit more on volume,
even though it is like, you know, they are deep
runs and final tables and whatnot. I would say somebody
who's for sure doing it on volume is John Reardan
right now, twelve cashes, five hundred and thirty five points,
only has one top three finish from those twelve cases,
so he does have four final tables. Yes, does reard In,
but it's more just like a volume play with John Reardan.
So I agree with you on shore it's also something,
you know, something where I think he's playing a little
bit bigger now, you know, twenty five k's are something
that I expect him in, whereas before it was like
we could see Shannon, we could not see Shannon in
the twenty five K. Kind of depends. Maybe it depends
how his series was going. I remember there was a
couple series, you know where he would show up for.
I can't remember if we had five ks to start,
but he would always be there for like the opening events,
either the five ks or the ten k's and then
kind of see how it goes and then go from there,
right and then maybe he would play a fifteen K
and if he didn't do anything, he was kind of
done for the series, which you see a lot from
the guys on the tour, you know, they kind of
phase out as they go. But now I expect Shore
to be there, Like he'll be there for the five K,
he'll be there for the twenty five K. You know
at the WSP. With the year that he's having, could
maybe see him dip his toes in the fifty K
or whatever. I think I think he'll get in eventually.
He got in last year, but it was via the
Last chance, so this year I think he gets in
just the direct entry. How'd you feel about the USPO overall.
Speaker 3: I mean it was I think it was good. We've
touched on it. I knew the numbers were going to
be down. They were down across the board on average
compared to what last year, down compared to Poker Cup
always going off the last series.
Speaker 2: We had about thirty five.
Speaker 1: Its last year.
Speaker 3: It was up from last year. But I'm looking at
just the last series.
Speaker 1: And I would say, like you would want to go like, Okay,
let's look at Poker Girl Cup year over year. Let's
look at USPO year over year. Let's look at you know,
Poker Masters when that happened years at.
Speaker 3: Both Yeah, sure, yeah, you know we had those two events,
the Event six fifteen k that broke a record. We
had the Event eight finale also broke a record. So
that's that's great to see. Uh So, Yeah, surprised, more
surprise than I thought I was going to be with
the numbers, and that just shows that, you know, PGT
is still healthy.
Speaker 2: We obviously are.
Speaker 3: You know, we had we were up against seminole. We're also
up against a little bit of interesting political, foreign affairs
time with the market traveling implications, so you know, with
those two factors, yeah, very very good result. I think overall,
I was.
Speaker 1: Shocked to see seventy three entries in the twenty five K.
I was like, what in the f and world? Because
last year wasn't it fifties fifty.
Speaker 3: Two or Yeah, it was very low last year.
Speaker 1: I mean, seventy three entries in a twenty five K
in the studio is amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had a now yeah before that, we had
a sixty nine at the twenty twenty one USPO, sixty
nine at the twenty twenty two pokem Masters, and then
sixty eight at last year's Poke Masters. So it's just
kind of blew through, blew through every everyone and everything.
And we had some people gip it that we hear
the whole series, So could have been seventy four, seventy five,
maybe maybe we could have flooded with eighty.
Speaker 1: You never know, you got any lessons or takeaways from
this year's USPO that you would apply to next year,
and maybe let me let me lead you a little
bit here and say that do you envision this stain
as just straight no limit hold them or maybe even
it's always no limit hold them. I mean, I know
it used to have like maybe one or two other things,
but would you ever do a PKO or a mystery
bounty or anything like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's been brought up several times, adding
a bounty, adding freeze outs, and we even had people
on our team, hey, why don't these are.
Speaker 1: So out really?
Speaker 3: Yeah, We've had people on our team say, you know
the poke a Cup, USPO pokemons are all the same. Well, yeah,
they're all the same for a reason. You know, we
want the note we you know, and we think this
is the formula that works. The numbers over the last
two years have shown that what we're doing works eight events,
you know, a lot more smaller stuff we're build into
a bigger one.
Speaker 2: It's working.
Speaker 3: Now. We want some bounties. Sure, that's why we're going
to try and do a bountie series this year. We're
doing other things and doing a lot more different series.
You know, I was looking at the data the other
day and I went back the year before the PGT started.
We only had three tournament series. So now we're going
to these three same majors, plus we're adding two PLO
series a mix game series, a kickoff a bountie series.
Alas like, we're adding more and more stuff so we
can start getting a little funky within its own series.
I don't really like messing with these majors. I like
the purity that they are. The numbers show that what
we are doing working, so we don't even really mess
with you know what works?
Speaker 1: All right, Let's move over to the PGTPLO series, which
Jesse Lonus won. It also at the death and this
one was I don't know if I would say it
was even more interesting, but it was interesting in its
own unique way because during the PGTPLO series, unlike what
we just saw at the USPO, the final day of
the PGTPLO series also had not only did it have
that twenty five K championship event, but it also had
the single day five K bounty tournament playing out, which counts.
So you had Jesse Lows at the final table of
the twenty five K and you mentioned, how, you know,
talking about the USPO, how you want like a time
when all the people at the final table like are
in contention. There's all this weird icm stuff. Jesse Lowis
was for sure aware of where he needed to finish
and was playing totally opposite to Jesse Loanz at this
twenty five K PLO final table. He knew he had
the ladder up and he was very very tight and
very conservative for what we normally see from Jesse Lownes.
And he talked about it a bit on stream. I mean,
he knew what was going down, and then while that
was happening, he also knew that he he had to
sweat Alex Foxen in the five K. Loan has ended
up taking a believe it was third in that that
uh that twenty five K, which which allowed him to
overtake fox In at least temporarily, but it left the
door open for fox In if he were to win
the five K single day Bounty tournament. And it was
a max sweat because Foxing got heads up, yep. I mean,
what in the freaking world was that?
Speaker 2: It was perfect? It was a very tail ending really
for the PLO series.
Speaker 3: And you know, Jesse bus said he came out to
the bounty I think they were down to the final table,
but maybe they were like playing like four and four
and he was just standing there and just kind of
sweating Alex for a little bit put a bounty on
his head kind of us pleaded with everyone to bust
him real quickly. So the fact that he was the
shortest stack in the money and got all the way
to heads up play just to put the sweat on
was it was kind of an amazing result.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not only were they battling for the series title,
but the series title was extra spicy in this one
because this was one of those ones when there was
that big fifty thousand dollars side bet have to win
the leader board. This time it was the biggest one
that they've ever had. Eleven people were in it. Lonus
was in it, and fox and was in it. So
whoever won that was gonna pocket in an additional five
hundred k on the side from this side bet. So,
I mean, that's just insane.
Speaker 3: Must have made a deal.
Speaker 1: No, I'm pretty sure they didn't make a deal. And
I think that in one of the other tournaments, I
can't remember, but there was I want to say it
involved Bryce Yockey. I think he might have been in
the bed as well, but he was. It got down
to heads up and like the other guy asked like,
you can't make a deal, right, And I think Bryce said,
if I remember correctly or if I understood him correctly,
saying like no, like we can't, like part of the
rules is like we can't like finagle the the points
or of money or anything like, we have to just
play it straight. I mean, so that's that's just insane.
So so Loanus ended up finishing as the winner of
the series. He had five cashes. It's actually funny, both
Foxin and Lonus had five cashes. Both locks, Lonus and
Foxen had four final tables, both of them had four
top three finishes, and both of them won a tournament
all at the PGTPLO series. But Jesse was a little
bit better six hundred and sixty two points to Foxton's
six thirty three. Lonus to cash for just shy of
eight hundred K during the series, and then of course
he won, he won what seems incredibly small, but you know,
nonetheless the ten k PGT and then and then he
looks five K side bet as well. So, I mean,
just absolutely wild stuff at the PGTPLO series. One of
the things that was a bit different about the PGTPLO
series is it had eleven events. You know, the majors,
the you know the Cup Uspo Masters, those are eight events,
but this one was I mean, this one was long.
I know you weren't here for all of it. You
were dipped dipped out to Australia for a little bit,
but I just remember being there, like in the middle
of it, being like, this series is still going like
these there was one guy. I gotta find this guy's name.
I'm pretty sure it's Tomash Krazinski. And I kept saying,
I know, like our photographer Antonio has no idea who
Tomash Krasinski is either. I'd never seen him until this series.
But I said to Antonio, I said, listen, see that
guy right there. I have the most respect for that guy.
This guy showed up every freaking day and got his
teeth kicked in every day, just in the tournament. Rebot
in the tournament in like just NonStop, finished with two cashes.
He was there from the first event to the last event,
multiple entries. I he probably fired thirty bolts in this
damn thing. And I was like, this dude has the
resiliency that that should should be, you know, applauded around
the world. You should you should do like classes in
colleges about this guy's ability to get knocked down and
get back up. I was like, how do I don't
know how this guy's doing I would be so far
out the door, laying in the strip, hopefully somebody ran
me over with a car. But this guy, no, just
kept on going, kept on going. I have no idea
how he did it.
Speaker 3: I'm actually looking at you know, everyone that played how
many do you think played every event? First?
Speaker 1: First, how many do I think played every event?
Speaker 3: Yep, twelve people, that's good, guess thirteen okay, yeah, and
I'm looking at the worst.
Speaker 1: I mean it had to be. It had to be
basically the people in the bet plus maybe a couple more, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just trying to think who had the worst series.
Speaker 1: Thomas Krazinski had the worst series, for sure. The guy
had two cashes. He was there every FN day, I'm
telling you, every day. It did not matter.
Speaker 3: There's one person that had a worse series.
Speaker 1: Kerry Katz, Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean
Carrie was also there every day, yeah.
Speaker 3: Cash as well, but for a lot less money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean, yeah, he there was a lot
of people that were there, a lot that that didn't
really have good series. You know, Ronald Kaiser didn't really
have a good series for Ronald Kaiser standards. He only
had three cashes. Jeremy Osma's really didn't do anything. I know,
I know Nick Shulman like had five cashes, but like,
you know, kind of really didn't do much, you know
for Nick Shulman standards. Thought it would be a bit
better there. Who else was there? Patrick Leonard, you know,
I thought would have a little bit of a better series.
He didn't really have that good of a series. So yeah,
there was a lot of people that were just kind
of you know, bricking left and right. But that's that's
just how it is. But anyway, yeah, Jesse loanis crushed it,
you know. And and what was I mean you were
you had come back now from Australia for the last
couple of events, so what was that like, I mean
you talked about a little bit, but being in that
room for the final, I wish we could have streamed it.
I wish we could have just put the table up
there because because the five K single day, which I
think we all thought would have ended before the twenty
five K final table, but the twenty five K finl
table ended in like two and a half hours. It
was very very quick, very quick. Yeah. So yeah, I
mean you mentioned already like Jesse went out there, he
was sweating, like I mean, I'm sure that was just wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't stick around that long. He's like kind
of kind of left, but I know that, you know,
he couldn't handle the pain, couldn't handle it. The eventual
winner of the tournament, Zachary Schwartz's plays basketball with Jesse,
So I know for a fact and Zach once I
hit the money, Zach had like sixty percent of the
chips in play, so he was just like finish him
off place like like just texting him.
Speaker 2: And you know, I al I saw if Alex play
a few hands.
Speaker 3: And he looked you know, it's not like he's Alex
is ever like smiling when he plays. He's pretty you know,
got that very stoic and I guess a little bit
you know, mean mugging look on his face when he plays.
But you could just see a little bit more anguish
in some spots when he folded, because he knew that
there was so much more on the line. For first,
he wasn't just really playing for you know, winning sixty
K and some bounties. He's really playing for sixty k
se bounties, ten K, a Gold Cup and half a
million dollars. So I think for Alex it was a
lot harder because Jesse's already out. He knew what he
needed to do, he knew he had to win, and
like he's so close. It's not like he was like
playing in a field of one thousand and you know,
he finished one hundred.
Speaker 2: He's literally got heads up.
Speaker 3: One just had to just be one more guy and
he would have won all of this, all of this money.
And yeah, so for him, I feel a lot of anguish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also you know, I guess I guess going
back and bringing in the USPO for a second, Foxen
was the leader right through, but didn't he lead the
way through four events?
Speaker 2: Or was it?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, that was sorry, that was at the PLO series.
I'm getting this crossed up. But Foxton was in contention,
I'll say in the USPO. Yeah, he was like after
he like towards the end because he won event number
seven and then he was you know, it was like, Okay,
Foxen has a chance to possibly go on to catch
Matthew Wantman, And what I'm getting at is. You know,
Foxten is one of those guys obviously performs extremely well
on the PGT over and over again. Like he's always
you know, kind of towards the top of the leaderboard,
minus last year when he kind of had a down year,
but other than that, you know, he's always crushing but
yet to win a series title. Yeah, you know, he's
one of those guys him Nick Shulman, like it's gonna
happen eventually. It just hasn't happened yet. But but I'm sure, Like,
I mean, these guys are human and they're ultra competitive,
like I'm sure for Foxing, you know, at some point
you're like, all I got to do is beat this
guy heads up, and I win this, you know, and
then like and then you're in and then you're in
contention again once you win that event, you know, late
in USPO and you're like, oh, I get a shot again,
like is this going to be the time type of thing?
Speaker 3: So yeah, I looked at you know, that last day
of the USPO, I looked at all our series and
where the leaderboards finished, and I looked at fox and yeah,
as you mentioned, he hasn't won one.
Speaker 2: But he's got a second, three thirds, a fourth, and
two fifths on series leaderboards over the last five years.
That's just kind of incredible that he's getting so close
in all these majors and just you know, a couple
points short, you know, maybe a couple of ladder up
short here and there, so he'll come, He'll get one.
He's he's always going to be in contention. He's always
going to be a betting favorite to top the leaderboard.
And you know, if he keeps making fifty k.
Speaker 3: Beds Lona's and Negrando and all these guys, he's always
going to have a little extra carrot to chase.
Speaker 2: You know, at the end of that race.
Speaker 1: Well, why didn't we see a fifty k bed for USPO.
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 2: Look to be honest, I was.
Speaker 1: I was shocked because I was like, well, they're all
going to want their money back, Like, well that is
now what you do? Like who cares? I already lost
fifty k, Like now I got to try and run
it back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, maybe they was and there wasn't
just as publicized as the PLO as the PLO one,
But yeah, maybe they just didn't have enough people that
were interested. Maybe it was only say Fox and Lonas
and Negrando and they didn't think it was worth it
or something.
Speaker 1: So and then I gave some some flowers to Lance
Bradley for that piece on Shannon Shore. I got to
give one to actually a good friend of Lance, Tim
Furorvanti aka Tim Turn, who wrote about Jesse Lonis winning
the five hunder k PLO side bet over on poker
dot Org. So you guys can check that out. You
can head over to poker dot or it's called they
Want to Gamble. Jesse Want has won five hundred k
PLO bet on himself. So that's a good story over
there if you want to read a little bit more
about that, and you know, hear from Jesse himself on
winning that side bets numbers once again held super strong
for the PGT PLO series is this and and listen,
we didn't have a whole bunch of guys. Yeah, that
that probably would have accounted for I'll say anywhere from
five to fifteen, maybe even twenty entries per event. I'm
not joking because Tim knows. But every event is unlimited
re entry until the final event. And like Elis Parson
in you know, uh ye Joni Yokamin and like they're
gonna blast, especially in the Bounty events, blast blast blast,
like absolutely blast so but but numbers once again held
st strong. So like, is are we ever going to
see this popularity die down in PLO? Like what the
heck is with it? Like every time we have one
of these series, and we now do two of them
a year, they just continue to crush.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, first we got to look at it,
and from our perspective, the operator is just, you know,
be careful. We don't want to make any mistakes and
kind of run too many events because we see the
World Series obviously they added one hundred K this year,
Paradise added one hundred K, so there's a lot of
high stakes PLO for these players to play. Tryin obviously
does stuff, so we need to be careful not to
kind of flood the market. But you know, PLO is popular.
We did, you know, start talking about schedules a little
bit when we were there.
Speaker 2: Players.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I think our players, you know you talked about
the finish guys. I think our players more interested in
adding maybe another five K, killing one of the fifteen ks.
Main reason is they can get some you know, a
bigger field, more fresh faces in the studio, and I
think that kind of helps the overall you know, Omaha ecosystem.
That doesn't seem like it's going to die anytime soon,
but we don't want to speed up that if that
is around the corner. Now.
Speaker 1: I know you weren't there for the event, but the
PLO series did feature the pgt's first ever Mystery Bounty Tournament.
And I remember, like during it happening, walking by tournament
director Paul Campbell from ARI and he said, these guys
love it, they absolutely love it. We need to do
more of these. And I was like, yeah, they're in.
You know, how like, do you have any feedback on it?
How do you think it went? You know, I think
the turnout was pretty good for it, seventy eight entries.
Now I know it's it's probably not as fun because
two guys want all the bounties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I didn't say how that could. That seems ragged.
Speaker 1: I mean it was wild how it happened too, because
so in this tournament, twelve spots pay. But the way
that you set it up is the bounties kick in
before the payouts kick in. Yeah, it's kind of like
this double bubble. So the bounties kicked in when there
were fifteen players left three off the money, and once
that happened, you know, they kind of do the whole Like, okay, guys,
the bounties are now on play. Then all of a sudden,
there's a four way all in at the table involving
Bryce Yocky. Bryce Yockey already has a bazillion chips. He
ends up busting three players on one hand. One hand,
they are in the money. One hand, Bryce Yackey gets
three bounties. Okay, now in a mystery bounty, you don't
have to go pull your bounties right away. You can
do it whenever you want. He didn't pull right away.
On another table, Tyler Brown gets in this enormous pot
where that he gets all the money in. He ends
up busting someone and they he I'm like standing kind
of behind him, and he like looks over and he's
kind of like he's in the middle of the room
and like Bryce's table is on the kind of in
the corner by the cage. It's about i'll say, twenty
five feet thirty feet away from him. He's like, oh,
did Bryce draw yet? And you know, everyone's like no,
so he's getting dealt in. He gets his next hand,
I think he just folds it. He immediately goes over
to the to the drunk. He's like, I'm gonna pull
boom one hundred and twenty five k, biggest bounty. And
Bryce is like, what the.
Speaker 2: F I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, you could have went and.
Speaker 1: Pulled your bounties, Bryce, but you didn't. So it was
just it was funny. And then Tyler Brown pulls his
second bounty fifty k straightway well like like shortly thereafter,
but he did it before Bryce pulled again. So and
then he's and there was I think there was two
fifty k's right, So he pulls with the biggest, the
second biggest one. Then he pulls a third bounty. He
pulls twenty five K, which was the third biggest amount.
So boom boom boom won two three, you know, in
descending order, the three biggest amounts available. Just absolutely wild stuff.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun, It was electric, and
it it also led to this super super weird dynamic
because these guys were going nuts with the bounties. We
get down to like six handed or five handed they're
like average stack, one hundred big blind's deep, yeah, which
you never see. And I'm like, and Maury the President
happened to be there, and I was like, I go
find Marey. I'm like, Maury, we got to figure out
what to do because like, we can't have these guys
come back the next day with you know, five players
left being a hundred big blinds deep. That's just gonna
be It's gonna be a twenty hour final table. That's
the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So he's like, yeah,
we got to play him down. But you know, from
an entertainment side, Daniel Legrandu is in, so like we
don't want to risk him busting as well. So it's
like this weird, this weird thing.
Speaker 2: Do you think they.
Speaker 3: Could have finished I'm just trying to think ahead the
next time, but could they have finished out of ending
one day? So, like, would it have finished at say
four am?
Speaker 1: Do you think it probably would have finished in one day? Okay,
not super late. I mean listen the triple elimination after everything, yeh,
you know, like that was just that was ridiculous. All
So I'm like, I know that there's bounties in play, yes,
but like, I mean, some of these bounties were five K,
ten K. It's not like they were all one hundred
and twenty five and fifty. Like they were going nuts
for these bounties, and I wanted some five in this,
so I know, but it was like, did it really
make sense to go as crazy as they were going
for the bounties? Is kind of what I'm getting at. Yeah, Okay,
Then there's this weird dynamic where like they're I got
to see if I remember this correctly. But they get down,
they get down to four handed, and Daniel looks at me,
and Daniel's like, we got to keep playing, and I'm like, yeah,
it makes no sense. They're like like ninety big blinds deep.
I'm like, this is the most absurd thing. But then
Taylor Wilson is like, I don't really want to keep playing.
And then Daniel's like, well, we got to keep playing.
Why don't we play till like the end of like
we'll play through this level and play the next level
or something like that, which would have been like I
don't know, forty minutes or an hour or something like that.
So that so Taylor Wilson's like, yeah, but then Taylor
Wilson was like, I have its flight tomorrow, and so
then Daniel's like, well, then you make no sense. Why
don't you want to play as far down as possible today?
Like why do you want to stop and come back
tomorrow if you have a flight and then your flight?
Like this doesn't make any sense. Dan, It's like you're
making no sense, buddy, Like what's what's going on here?
They end up they end up finishing. It ends up
being Taylor Wilson ends up busting out and they're still
super deep, Bryce Jockey, Tyler Brown and Daniel and ground
here they stop three handed and they come back the
next day so we can stream it. But it was
it was just such a wild end to the night,
Like you just never see people be that deep. And
this was like this is like nine to nine pm.
This wasn't like you know, one in the morning. This
is like super early.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And like, of course, you know all the guys because
some of them are in the bet, like you know,
for the fifty k side bets, so they want to
play all the tournaments. They obviously want to play all
the tournaments anyway, but when you have the fifty k
side bet, you definitely want to play all the tournaments,
so like they don't want to come back the next
day a hunter, big Blind's deep and risk not being
able to get into that fifteen K. So it was
just it was a whole thing, but it was It
was absolutely wild. But have the what have the players
said about the Mystery Bountie anything? Loved it, hated it?
Speaker 3: I mean, I haven't heard a lot, but the only
thing what I have heard is pretty positive. So I
don't think it's going to go anywhere. I guess it's
more of a question of do we want to add
more Mystery Bounties to the PLO series? Do we want
to you know, change change that up? Do we want
to do a five K? You know, it's there's a
lot of problems with it rightither It is a bit
more labor intensive for Aria, but then for us it
does affect it's harder to predict the stream, so you know,
like you kind of touched on, we've got to play
a little deeper down to four players potentially, you know,
on day one, So there's a lot a lot more
to it, but hey, we're going to do whatever the
players want and whatever gets good numbers.
Speaker 1: I think overall. Did you have other feedback from the
players on this series. I know, the PLO series is
one that you know, you kind of have switched up
how it's it's looked, and then this one went. I
believe it was like it had it had like the
different buying levels like five K, ten K, fifteen K,
and it was like regular PLO bounty then regular then
regular bounty regul you know what I mean? Like, is
that is that? Is this the best one you think
that you've done? What do the players think? Do they
want anything back? I mean one of the things that
I hear, I hear it. I know why we don't
do it, but but everyone's always like, you know, you'll
hear it, and it's like Alan Castler says it, and
like I don't really care what he says, but I'm
just I'm just bringing it up to bring up, bring
it up and ask you a question. But you know
why no Polo high low. Yeah, I mean, I personally
think Polohilo would fit more in like the Mixed Game
series than it doesn't the PLO series. You know, I
would rather if you didn't anything here, like you would
add a five card PLO.
Speaker 3: I mean We've tried both and they haven't been that successful.
So we are all about, you know, maximizing our numbers,
and those two don't fit the bill in this In
this schedule, we're gone all high. Yeah we do. We
go high bounty high, you know, high bounty high. That
seems to be a good flow, so probably kind of
keep that. And you know, I think we just got
to tweak some things. You know, maybe there's too many.
We've got to cut a fifteen K off and add
another five k. Do we want to make the five
k progressive and mystery boundiye, Like we're all about trying
new things to see what kind of sticks, and also
giving players options that they don't really have. There's not
really any five K or ten K plow progressive bounties
in the world except for us. Never really been a
fifteen K plow mystery bounty. So we're doing new things,
we're experimenting, we're seeing what players like, and we kind
of fit to what the masses want, all right.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I like it. I think it's great.
Do you think it's going to be the similar schedule
and length for the second series?
Speaker 2: I thought maybe eleven events was a little too long.
Speaker 1: You know, it seemed like the thing lasted for freaking Yeah.
I was like, is have any money left?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I thought it was too long. I talked to
you know, say I talked to Bryce about it. He
was like, I think it was fine because you know,
at of the players here only play plow. You know,
it is a little long for Negrano and Lonnus and
Alex Fox and that play all the other stuff as well,
But for say Bryce or you know, Ronald Kaijer, just
the pure plow guys, it's not long at all.
Speaker 2: It's kind of perfect.
Speaker 3: So knowing that, okay, that's I guess eleven isn't too bad.
But come October, we definitely want to try and bring
back the hundred K. So trying to fit this in
with a very already busy October with you know, with
some other high stake stuff planned, maybe the series gets
cut down a little bit. We go down to eight events,
just so it can you know, what they're spending is
essentially can be fairly equivalent once we add like one
hundred K to the end of the series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would think you would probably want to cut
it down if you're going to put one hundred k
on the end as well, you know, just allow people
to kind of save some money. Yeah, I guess in
that regard. One thought is you have a mystery Bundy
prize that's one hundred k entry.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to predict those mystery bounty payouts though,
because it's so fields.
Speaker 1: Also the ones that you did, you know, like how
you had it was it was, it was what it
was like thirty percent of the prize bowl went to
the mystery bounders and the rest went to the regular
price bowl. I thought that was a great breakdown as
opposed to doing it fifty to fifty. You know, the
bounties I thought were pretty hefty. I know, only two
people won bounties. Tyler Brown won two hundred and eighty
thousand and Bryce Yockey won one hundred and ten thousand.
I mean, but that's just how things broke in this
specific situation. But you know, one hundred and twenty five
k for a big one. I liked how there was
still a fifty k. There was two fifty k's, but
one of them was reserved for the final table. I
thought that that was great.
Speaker 3: That's you know, comp I have to give a big
shout out hit to Paul Campbell because you know the
fact that I was playing with kangaroos and one bats
down in Australia. He kind of took full control of
the mysteries. And you know, during the summer Aria run
a lot of mister Bounie, so he has a lot
of experience. A lot of these tweaks were all his ideas,
so he wanted to keep one of the second place
ones for the final table.
Speaker 2: He kind of controlled the amounts.
Speaker 3: We just got the all the envelopes made in advance
so he could figure out the numbers and make sure
it works. So big shout out to to poll with
those ones.
Speaker 1: I definitely would throw in like like I know the
fifteen K mystery boundie that we did, the lowest one
was five K. I would have like two to one
ks I wanted.
Speaker 3: I wanted a five hundred because they're they're chasing the
big they don't care about five k or ten K.
They want to win one twenty five. So how do
we Is there a way we can you know, make
a few five hundred or one thousand ones just so
we can have maybe another one hundred k somehow. That's
what I would rather do so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. How would we do some of
those code works?
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: You have to refresh me. I don't even know what
we have to do.
Speaker 3: You do?
Speaker 1: You just say the code words? Because jingle is there.
Speaker 3: Producer Rich hasn't been working for the last seven weeks.
I don't know what he's been doing, but maybe he
can insert a jingle. Hip p Folks at home, Me
and Donnie and the Pogo team, we're giving you a
chance to play in the PGT Million Dollar Championship with
all these guys we've been talking about on every episode. Uh.
And the way we're giving it me and Donnie is
you're going to go to PGT dot com slash gleam pod.
Speaker 2: G l e A m p o D.
Speaker 3: It's going to take you to a little contests where
you can earn raffle tickets.
Speaker 2: You basically can do all these things.
Speaker 3: Like retweet and follow us and and et cetera and
earn tickets. We're going to draw at the end of
the year. One winner is going to represent the Polago
podcast in the PGT Championship. In that contest, there are
code words you can enter. We're going to update the
code words, you know every so often the two new
code words for this week until we were again, I'm
going to go with sure for Shannon Shaw, so s
h O r R.
Speaker 2: And then the second code word.
Speaker 3: Makes sense, it's going to be lonus for Jesse loonus
l O n I S. So you can enter those
in you get max tickets for that contest, and you know,
keep listening to us, keep entering, keep putting in code words,
share it amongst people.
Speaker 2: We're trying to give you a chance to win.
Speaker 3: And also if you go to PGT dot com slash gleam,
it takes you another contest the same kind of things,
but it's not probably good podcast related. But there is
still some tasks you can do to also win a
seat into the PGT Million Dollar Championship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one u ur L and we should probably
just put it in the show notes or in the
description of my podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: PGT dot com slash dream dash Seat is the page
that outlines everything all the different promotions on how you
can possibly win a dream seat. So you can go
to that page and you know, I mean it's a
lot of text and whatnot, but it says, you.
Speaker 2: Know, everything was lanked in this.
Speaker 1: This is the podcast giveaway. This is the gleam social
media giveaway. This is the you know partnership we have
with Run Good Like. So there's all the different stuff.
It's all on that page. And if we do add
anything as we go throughout the season, we'll also add
it to that page, so you know, I would keep
it posted there. I would love I think I've said
this before when we've talked about this, I would love
for a podcast listener to get into that damn PGT
million dollars championship and freaking run Deep make the final table.
Give them hell, let's go all right? So yeah, code
words are sure and lonus And if you didn't understand
it from Tim, that's an h inshore, not a not
a h.
Speaker 3: I just come world series. When we're doing you know,
everyday podcasts. I think we just made a jingle and
AI insert the words we're gonna speed that up combo serious,
So Producer Rich, you'd better be listening. Find us a
good jingle so we can do this a little more streamlined.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move things over to the first ever
Super High Roller Bowl Mixed Games. Chad eve Sledge won
the damn thing one hundred thousand dollars by and he
won one point two million dollars. There were twenty nine
entries in this event. The top five paid. Eve Sledge
came out on top one point two million. As I mentioned,
he beat Michael Manchek aka Texas Mike seven hundred and
twenty five k for him, Yuri's Eve Alevski aka ury
nerd guy out of Brazil, but I believe he relocated
to Miami third place for four hundred and fifty k,
Daniel Legran new fourth place for three hundred k, and
then Benny Glazar fifth place for two hundred and twenty
five thousand dollars. Before we talk about this event a
little bit more, Tim did an interview with Eve Sledge
after eve Sledge grabbed the title. So let's kick it
to that interview right now and then we will be
right back.
Speaker 3: Chad, congratulations, first ever Super high roller Ball Mixed Games Champion.
I want to know, as a mixed game player, what's
it like that. You know, we've had the fifty k
for fifteen plus years or so, now we have one
hundred K mixed tournament.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? Do you think to the mixname community.
Speaker 4: I think it's a good signal on I mean, everyone
who comes in the mix typically stays in mixed because
it's it's a lot of fun. People love it, and
getting more exposure will bring more people in. I mean,
it could really explode if it gets enough people. But
because people once they come in, they don't leave. It's
they're like everyone says the same thing. It's way more
fun than no Limit.
Speaker 1: It's like that.
Speaker 4: So it's a great sign that the mix is kind
of growing.
Speaker 3: We've had four PGTM mix same series, and obviously this
is the first super high roller ball. When you heard
that we're going to do one hundred k, whether it
was through the WhatsApp chats or you know, through social
what was your first thought when that came out?
Speaker 2: When those needs come out?
Speaker 4: First off was like, well, I'm gonna play, but that's
a lot of money.
Speaker 3: But I was excited.
Speaker 4: I knew I was gonna play it.
Speaker 3: I just I was excited.
Speaker 4: I mean it was I thought it was going to
be like I thought it was gonna be smaller. Honestly,
I mean everyone here did a really good job promoted
it and getting it big, especially when Jju was going
on it would have. I mean, I can't believe how
big it would have got. We probably have got another
ten people if JJU wasn't going on.
Speaker 2: So when you.
Speaker 3: Know, you played all the PGTAM Mixed Games events leading
up to this and we had really you know, we
had record breaking numbers. Was that do you automatically think, hey,
this one hundred k is going to be big? Or
it was because of the buying. It was always be
like we just done not Yeah.
Speaker 4: Everyone was kind of debating it. I thought it was
going to be small, like hundred k is like you know,
everyone says, yeah, I'll probably play, but hundred k is
a lot of money. And yeah, I mean it blew
my expectations. I would have thought it would have got
about twenty but yeah, what did we even twenty nine?
Speaker 3: Twenty nine? Yeah, that's pretty sick. So we you know,
we're trying to make this the kind of mix game
to play. Obviously it's it's hard to ever rival the WSP,
but you know, there's ten games and this makes you know,
one more than WSP, a lot less than the Dealer's Choice.
What do you think would be right to be the
kind of mix you know, the super hyroll makes this
ten game kind of ideal, do you.
Speaker 4: Think I think ten games good, but Doogie is nice.
I think that's a good addition. PLO No Limit definitely
should be in there. I think I think it's just
kind of perfect. Actually, I don't think there's really one
game that that anybody's like, oh, that should be in there.
It's just like it's got a little bit of everything
and like enough variety. The word it's challenging where you know,
the big dead players would have to kind of bob
and weave and like Paougie and stuff. So I think
it's a good balance.
Speaker 3: You have WPT title, you have four WSB Bracists now
Super High Rollable title. They're all different, you know, big feels,
you know, bracelests a special, this is special. Where does
this rank in kind of all your poker accomplishments throughout
your career?
Speaker 4: I think this this might actually be my my favorite one.
Like my first WPT win was just like probably the
most special to me, just because I was like kind
of like that was like heater begins and it was
just it was more exciting, like you know, this was
this Don't get me wrong, this was exciting, but it's
like it gets it's not the same when it's not
the first one. But as far as like my favorites,
I mean, that's got to be this one, this one,
Like I would much rather have this title than like
a you know, a random fifteen hundred world series or
something like that.
Speaker 2: Perfect answer for us.
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit about the players.
Pretty much every player in this field. You got a
lot of experience, you know, whether it's WSP, whether it's online,
whether it's playing on these apps whatever. But Texas Mike
the guy you kind of went heads up with, how
do you approach playing him, you know, in the four
ring settings, and also then heads up with him not
as versed in some of these you know, yeah mixed games.
Speaker 4: Yeah, It's like I feel like the people that come
in here, there's kind of generalities about them, where like
beginners often make the similar mistakes. However, Hike was making
was like his was all bizarre. He was like really
aggressive and something. I mean I thought I thought he
played pretty well actually, especially for not having much experience.
I mean, like like I said to the other guy,
I mean the URI call, he thought it out exactly perfect,
and I was like I you know, I'm not sure
this was running through URI's mind, but I think Uri
thought that Mike wouldn't put it together because he's kind
of newish and like, because I don't think Uri would
run that bluff that often.
Speaker 3: I don't know he.
Speaker 2: Switching back here to the PGT.
Speaker 3: You know, you picked up four hundred points here, you
had it, you know, a casher in the Mix Game series.
Obviously we have WSP coming up. We do a million
dollar free roll. Is that something you know? Not a
lot of mixed guys get into the free roll just
because of the amount of mixed events, But is that
something you know? You've got a pretty good start, right
non you know, is this something you really want to chase?
Speaker 4: It's definitely in my mind. I mean I will play,
I'll plably play the twenty five k no limits and like,
you know, if I'm really close, then maybe I'll jump
into like the fifty k oh limits at the World Series.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So that was Chad eve Sledge after his win. I
know it's a couple of weeks old now, but still
very important. First ever one hundred K buy in Mixed
games tournament, the largest ever. How do you think it went?
It was three days. It was long, but it was fun.
I thought it was pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty nine entrance was definitely more than I expected
leading into it.
Speaker 2: We had no idea, but never done this before. It
had never been done.
Speaker 3: We're hoping for two tables two, maybe we get to three,
have some fun, what some money, But to get to
twenty nine is kind of incredible. For shout out to
Phil Sterenheimer for really behind the scenes sending texts and
you know, running online satellites and really you know, forcing
the action, as I may say, to get people out here.
And even on that the eve of the event, you know,
the satellite doing this crazy deal that involved tallal him
and Sam Stonefield just to ensure that Sternfield had a
seat and also Tall I will guarantee to play too,
because you know, Phil was always in. But yeah, twenty
nine entrants. It's just a fantastic result. And I think
a lot of there was a lot of fomo out there.
We heard from players that they were kind of they
were unsure and now they kind of regret not playing.
There's people that went to try and that kind of
wish they didn't go to Tryton just to play this event,
So yeah, massive success in my eyes.
Speaker 1: Who were some of those players? I mean, I know
Jared Blesnik I saw him talk about.
Speaker 3: Jared was a big one that you know, kind of
regretted going to try and we heard, you know, in
the Nacho wish he you know, he did okay there,
but wish he kind of stuck around to play that.
So and we saw people skipped skip trying, you know,
we saw ras he skipped tried, Nick Sulman skip Triyton.
Although Scott Seever isn't known to go there, he's very
capable to go to try it and play. But you
know he played every every event in the Mix Sam
series and the Super High Rollable Mix. So that was
a great thing. If you know, hopefully bring it back.
If we can just fade Hied, maybe that number twenty
nine starts creeping up, we can, Hey, let's sayme for
thirty five entries next time.
Speaker 1: Jeremy Osmas was a Triton. He was a tried and
I know they weren't at Triton, but the two commentators
I think certainly would love to play Alex Livingston and
Christmas commentary for all three days if you want to
learn about mixed games. It is incredible commentary incredible from
Livingston and Witch. You can find it on Poker Go,
you can find it on the Poker Goro YouTube channel.
But they did three days of coverage for this event.
So you get the best players in mixed games in
the world playing one hundred k buy in, super long,
drawn out structure, player friendly structure, whole bunch of different games,
and then you get two of the best minds in
the booth. It was incredible if you want to like
learn and just you know, get insight into their brains,
which isn't obviously easily accessible, Like you can't just phone
up Alex let Meson and be like, hey what do
you think about this? Or call Chris Bitch be like hey,
what do you think about this? But this was like
I don't even know how long it was, fifteen hours
of some of the twenty hours of coverage, whatever it was,
and it's all them. It's just those two in the booth,
you know, going back and forth, you know, talking through things.
So I would highly encourage anyone who missed this, who has,
you know, even the slightest interest in mixed games to
check it out. And I think that those two guys
as well are probably like, you know, next year, I
really want to try and play it. Obviously, they probably
had a lot of fun being in the booth. Yes,
but I think you know, you see it and you're like, wow,
I got twenty nine entries, Like I you know, I
should be in there. You know what am I doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah that you know, they're absolutely fantastic behind the mic.
But yeah, you're right, they probably wanted to be in there.
They didn't have the best mix game series, so that
was probably one reason as well.
Speaker 2: But yes, twenty nine entrance. We never we never saw
that one coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the satellite that you mentioned had seventeen
entries twelve thy seven hundred dollars buying in that one.
It got two seats and then a little bit of
money left over for third, which ended up going to
Phil Sternheimer after they had that long negotiation that lasted
like forty five minutes for Yeah, you got any player
feedback from it other than you know, the players who
were like, oh I should have stuck around and played.
Speaker 3: I mean no, outside of let's do this again and
let's try not to make it over that with try
and that's about it. So no complaints about the construction,
no complaints about the ten games choice that we did.
So yeah, we're just going to try and figure out
how to do it again next year. And you know,
let's just yeah, that's all I really can say right now.
Speaker 1: So we used we first on the PGT when we
implemented the PGT Mix Game series. We came out that season,
we had two of them. You know, we ended up
thinking like, okay, you know, maybe two's too much, right,
and we went back to just doing one. I mean,
is is one PGT mixed game series coupled with this
super high rollable mix Is that enough mixed games on
the PGT?
Speaker 3: You know how You Yeah, I think it is, you know,
with with the mix game series and then you have
the World series, there's a lot of big buying mixed games.
And for these guys, you know, unlike the No Limit guys,
unlike the PLO, a lot of them are they've got
a heavy percentage of themselves and it's not like they
can drop in steaks and play a bunch of five
k horse events around the world.
Speaker 2: Right at least with No Limit.
Speaker 3: PLO, you have a wider variety of steaks, bigger fields,
more money that you can win and get you know, unstuck.
You can get out of any makeup you may be in.
But with these guys, you just really have the world series.
You have us, and then you have whatever cash games
either in Arizona or Vegas or LA or in the
East Coast to play. So it's a much harder to
dig out of the hull. So if we make if
we you know, if we do add a second series,
you know, we make the buyings too big, it can
really really hurt the playoffool. And I'm definitely not bringing this.
We're not going to audible up one series.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 3: Maybe we added event L to next year to the series,
but that's really the most I would want to do.
Speaker 1: Just quickly, I was looking at the PGT mixed games,
uh you know leaderboard and the players there. Ryan Miller
is somebody who I thought might hop into the Hunter K.
You know, he's just so good at mixed games, you know,
but maybe it's just the fact, I mean he had it.
He hit a pretty good PGT mixed game series, you know,
he cast for two hundred and ninety three thousand dollars,
so I thought we might get him in and.
Speaker 2: He doesn't love the big bet stuff.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, but he you know, he might be one
of those people who he sees how many players it
got the first time, and then next year he kind
of splurges, you know, to do it. We didn't get
Gino Reim in it, which was surprising, right and because
he you know, I mean spoiler for what we're going
to talk about next, but he's the winner of the
PGT Mixed Game series and it's just surprising to not
see Chino then get in to the Hunter Game Mixed
James Ops, who did well in the final event of
the PGT Mixed Game series but had food poisoning. Yeah,
he opted it to go home.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So like those are players that I think you get eventually, right,
I mean.
Speaker 3: China played the satellites, he played the online satellites and
it didn't break, didn't break the right way for him.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he had a good series.
Speaker 3: He you know, I know the cash games that he
normally plays were popping off in the poker room because
I went in there yelled at him for not being
in the live satellite. But and then Obbys had some
food poisoning and he had a terrible series before the
twenty five K, so he was stuck a lot and
you know, digging out of the hall winning four hundred
sixty K or whatever it was, and the the finale.
It's a good way to just hey, I'm going to
take some profit, get back down to Australia. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another player who we all thought would play, David Oppenheim.
You know, at first it was a question if he
would play. Then he showed up for the twenty five case,
we were like, oh, okay, he's in. But then chip
the hundred k's and we're like, well, what the heck
is going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he did. He was there for the hunter K.
Speaker 3: He did come into the room for a little bit,
so I thought maybe he would register late.
Speaker 2: I guess not. Yeah, maybe we get him next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean I think, I mean, I think
a good number next year is thirty, Like that's the target.
Try and get to thirty. Yeah, however, we can do it.
You know, I think it's great to have somebody like
Phil Sternheimer behind it. You know, this is very much
his baby as much as it is yours. Somebody else
who I know he wants to play it. I don't
know if he would ever play it with certain things.
But president of Poker Grow Marius Candani, I know he wants.
I know he wants to play very much, but you
know he won't play stuff if it's streamed. Like there's
the whole thing. I get it. But you know, this
is definitely a bucket list item for him, and I
think he would do very well in the field. Every
time he plays these mixed games, he does very well.
So you know he's he's someone else.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: And then I bet you probably get like I bet
next year we get like one or two kind of
like random European guy who we just don't know of
yet but is a mixed game guy who probably just
sat on the sidelines and then now he sees it,
he's like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna go, I'm gonna
go take the shot type of thing. So so yeah,
I bet we I bet we get that. And then
it sounds like this is going to just remain on
the PGT calendar. Is that that's the plan?
Speaker 3: I didn't say why not if we can just yeah,
like I said, get the scheduling riot, we can maximize
the numbers to get you know, increase on that into
that thirty thirty five player mark for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Did Gordonski play.
Speaker 3: Gordon?
Speaker 2: I think Kip.
Speaker 1: I think he was. I don't remember him really having
a good mixed game series.
Speaker 3: Hit Yeah, three cashas for one hundred and thirty three K.
But he was always kind of, I think, on the fence.
From the list of forty names that we had going
into it, he was always kind of not in the
not in the green light.
Speaker 1: Now, what do you say when you know there's people
out there? We hear it. We hear it a lot
throughout the year. We hear it the most during the
World Series of Poker. But people say that, you know,
you guys need to do more mix games or mixed
games are underrepresented. I ran through some of the numbers,
you know, and I feel like they're very well represented
from Poker grows aspect, on the PGT aspect. So I mean,
what are your thoughts there when people say you guys
don't do enough or do more.
Speaker 3: Those people are correct and they're also incorrect. And what
I mean by that is they are underrepresented when you
compare it to everything in the world, all the streams,
all the no limits streams, the cash game tournaments plow.
But if you take it and look at the the
player pool and the percentage of players that play mix
I think it's, if anything, we do definitely more than
that player pool percentage wise. So we do a lot.
We have a mixed game series, we have the Super
High roller Ball. We obviously stream mixed games of the
World series. No one else really does any mixed games,
so you know, don't tell us we're not doing enough,
tell everyone else that they're not doing enough. So I
think it's pretty well represented in general. But you know,
people are always gonna complain or find a hole in something,
and you know, we'll just take it on the chin
and move on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was trying to look up the stats quickly that
I shared with someone, but but I'm not able to
find them right now. But I mean, we do I
feel like a lot of mixed game streaming when you
when you factor in, we do every five table from
the PGT mixed Game series. We did the three straight
days of coverage. I mean it's like two and a
half days, but still of the Super High Rollable mixed games,
you know, so that's like what ten days, twelve days
of mixed games coverage there. We'll do a small handful
of events during the World Series of Poker, but then
we'll do multiple days of the fifty k PPC. You know,
I don't know, I feel like there's I feel like
we do a ton, like like percentage wise, I mean,
that's that's it's it's a lot. So you know when
when people say like it's it's underrepresented, I you know, personally,
don't look at us, like us we're doing the most
with this sort of stuff. And you know, listen, I'll
be flat out honest. It probably doesn't benefit us from
a business perspective to do them because the viewership is
not there. Like it's just you know, you know, we
probably should be doing other stuff. But it is also
partly our responsibility, at least in my opinion, that we
should do mixed games, right, we should also do PLO.
We should do mixed games, you know, I would say,
obviously Nolavan hold them is the biggest and the best,
so we do the most of that. We do the
second most PLO, and then we do the third most
mixed games. You know, but I think eight or nine
straight days of final tables for mixed games leading into
Super High rollable mixed games and then the stuff that
we do in the summer. You know, I think it's
certainly well represented when it comes to the Poker Go
and the PGT offering. All right, last question, and then
we'll move it over to the PGT mixed games. So
the WSP they're finally doing one hundred k buy in
PLO event, right, we were the first ones to do
that with super high rollable PLO. They have now gotten
on board. Do you think that similarly they're going to
follow with a bigger mixed games event, greater than fifty k.
And the one I guess wrinkle here is that the
fifty k PPC is such a prestigious event, So like,
do you want to you know, go bigger than that?
Speaker 3: No. I I love the PPC. I think a lot
of people don't. I want to mess with it. I
wouldn't do anything bigger. I think fifty k is perfect.
Don't touch it, don't go bigger, just keep it the same,
That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I was just wondering if
maybe that was the thought that they might, you know,
do something.
Speaker 3: If anything, you could up the buy in, but don't
add if you add something bigger to it, I think
you just kind of kill a lot of that prestige
that that you're trying to to have with the fifty
k PPC.
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of like, I kind of feel
like they did that with the twenty five k horse,
like in a weird you know, even though it's on
the other side. It's like it's like, do you have
the fifty k PPC, Like nothing should be near it,
Like that's just like the the tournament you don't touch. Oh,
I found the stats. By the way, So between PGT
mixed games and Super High Rollable mixed games, we did
ten days of streaming three four total minutes, which equals
fifty two hours a lot. That's only that's only during
those series, Like that doesn't include I think we did
what three or four days of PPC streaming during the period.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then of course, you know, well if somebody
makes a big file table or whatever, we'll mix in
some other mixed games at the WSP. But but yeah,
a lot a lot of mixed games coming out of
Poker gro and the PGT. Some might say too much, honestly,
but no, but it's good, all right. And speaking of
Mixed Games. Gino Reim now a two time winner for
the PGT Mixed Games Series. He won the twenty twenty
five version. He had won win two final tables, three cases.
He won three hundred and forty eight five hundred dollars.
The event that he won was even number four ten
K eight game. He chopped it evenly money wise with
josh Aria, and then they did this crazy flip fest
at the end where I think they were flipping in plo,
which is nonsense at the end, but another good showing
at a mixed game series, you know, for China Reim.
I guess the fact that he's now won the PGG
Mixed Games twice even more so makes me wonder why
the heck he wasn't in the Super High rollerblels. You know,
what does it say in your opinion about his game,
his consistency, you know, across all the different variants. Obviously
very very tough group of competitors to go against.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he's just I think he's got an
incredibly underrated career, right, you know, when it comes to
the PGT, obviously he has those two series titles he played,
He's no limit plays play a low plays mixed games,
WPT titles. You know, WSP success may not be there,
but you know he does have that final table run.
He I think he's you know, very underrated poker player
and it's good to see him. You know, he won
that series title a couple of seasons ago one one
this season. You know, he's currently high up on the
PGT leader board and slowly, you know, he's turning his
life around with everything of his past instances, getting healthy,
trying to be a good dad. And you know, I'm
a big, big fan of China Room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you mentioned on something I was thinking
if I should bring up or not, but I'll bring
it up because you brought it up, you know, talking
about how he's kind of fixed all of his past issues, right,
you know, a lot of it was you heard all
we always heard all the rumors about the money stuff
and the debts and not paying people back and and
all that sort of stuff. Now it seems like everyone
loves the guy. You know, when we walk into the
Poker GHO studio, he's by far one of the most popular,
most liked players in there. And I don't think that
you would see that if he still had that baggage
with him. You know. Now, listen, I don't know all
the details. I don't know if he made everything right
or if it was just like kind of just let
go right. So but I'm not going to speak to that.
But I will say is that if that that baggage
was still with him, I do think that he probably
wouldn't be as popular, or you would hear kind of
some comments or people you know, would be a little
bit more standoffish as they would towards him. And what
I'm getting at is like when I'm in the commentary
booth and I'm reading the chats on YouTube, on poker,
grol whatever, and people are just like they're stuck in
two thousand and eight, two nine, twenty ten, like that Gino.
And he has certainly changed, you know, He's certainly trying
at least very hard to become a better person. And
I think that that needs to be said. You know,
not that I have any reason to be up here
defending the guy or saying that anything that he did
in the past was right, because it probably wasn't right,
but he you know, I think people do deserve second chances,
and they do deserve the the opportunity to right their wrongs,
to become a better person. And I think Chino is
certainly evidence of that, you know, everything single day. I
think he's waking up and just trying to be the
best that he can be. So, you know, if you're
one of those people that I guess hops in the
chat and just kind of says like, you know, no,
Chino's a dirt bag and whatever and this and that,
I mean, I don't think so anymore. Honestly, I don't
so drop it. It's basically, you know what I'm going
to say.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people with Chino is you know,
we've posted some stuff on social and seeing the response
of him playing big pots where there's a lot of
table talk and they're showing cards and you know, just
a lot of talking. And that's Chino's style. That's the
style that we all grew up watching on TV with
mattis our Helm, with Negrano, and you know, the current
state of high stakes poker tournaments, you know, we've got
some robots, We've got the Chidwick's, we got the Peters,
we got these silent guys that are very gto and
very you know, stoic, stoic with their actions and mannerism.
Chino is not that guy. Chinos there to have fun.
He's there to enjoy himself. You know, gives a bit
of action, he gambles a little bit, he talks a
little bit, but he's there to have fun, enjoy himself.
And I think people that are playing with him and
are in his presence enjoy his enjoy him being there.
So you know, you can have your own opinion on him.
I think we see him firsthand. I think we're fans
of Chino, both from him being one of our players,
but also how he you know, communicates with us, right.
I think he's always nice to us, always talks to us,
always very friendly, very jovial, very fun. So yeah, like
I said, I'm tam Cheno. If you're not team Cheno,
that's okay. I'm not going to judge, but yeah, he's
definitely a new and changed person.
Speaker 1: So two of the events at this series were record setters. First,
the event number one, the five K horse event, had
one hundred and thirty entries, and then that record was
quickly beaten because event number two had one hundred and
forty eight entries. So that's my lead in to saying
that you know, this series continues to perform extremely well
from a numbers perspective, It's become very sought after by
the mixed game community, the high stakes mixed game community.
They love to attend it. They respect it, you know,
they certainly show up. How proud are you with how
this series has evolved in such a short time. It's
only been on the PGT schedule for a few seasons now,
and it is just it is really, really, really well
attended every single year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this year you mentioned the five K
Horse one hundred and thirty entrance, the five K A
Game one forty eight. The previous records in both of those,
respectively were eighty seven and eighty nine. So they didn't
just like break it by a few players, it like
smashed through it. When we walked in that room and
saw all these people, we were just like, oh God,
were screwed today. And it wasn't just like oh, there's
ODB and there's Mike Lear and there's Elie Lezer. It
was like a wave of players We had no idea
And for like you, me and Mickey daff not to
know some of these players is pretty amazing. We know everyone,
So that's a good sign for the mixed game community
coming up. You know with the World series, that new blood,
new money in that in that player pool, and for us,
it's great, you know. We it shows people come to
support the series, they want to play in this, they
want to be part of the pgteam mixgame series, they
want to be on Puppetar And it kind of already
says to me, Hey, when you stop planning next year,
I think you need to put a third five k
in there and kind of keep that new blod, that
fresh blood in that room for just at least one
more day.
Speaker 1: What was it, was it seven events at this series?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did seven to fit in that hundred k.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you could probably do what you said,
add another five k kick it up to eight events.
So there were I mentioned the two opening events were
record setters. Then at the ten k price point you
had event number three set the record for a ten
k buy in event that was a ten k buying
horse event had ninety five entries. Then even number four
ten k E game. You know it didn't beat that
record that was just said, but it's now the second
biggest ten K mixed event that we had with ninety
two entries. Then the fifteen K fifteen K Dealer's Choice
set a record for a fifteen K one sixty five entries.
So I mean, that's absolutely incredible that five of the
seven events at this series are now in the top
two or you know, in its its price category. Yeah,
so that's just freaking wild, absolutely wild. And then and
then the twenty five K is right there too, because
the record for a twenty five K mixed for US
is fifty seven. This one had fifty six.
Speaker 2: Close it was sub closs.
Speaker 3: I really wanted to go you know, four from four
with breaking records at all price points, but we'll save
that for next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, listen, it's it's this series I
think continues to crush. I definitely think going to just
having one of them, you know, it creates that that urgency,
that exclusivity, that scarcity of it. You know, people know like, okay,
this is it. You know I have I think the
mixed game guys, you're they're like, Okay, I have the
WSP and there's that, but now I have this other thing,
and you know it might even be it might have
its its positives over the w SB, not not the
entire thing, you know, but you know, it's it's in
a like a basically a confined, luxurious space where it's
not you know, within everything else, it's you know, all
all that sort of stuff that these guys like they
get the free food vouchers and you know whatever, Like
it's just it's their little like home game for a
week and a half or whatever, and then they absolutely
love it. And you know, I know you and I
know that the cash games were going off while this
was happening. So yeah, I mean, it's just it's a
lot of fun to see this. So I like how
we've created basically two communities within the community sub communities.
We have the PLO one, right, you have all like
that group, that little family within the family, and then
you have the mixed game family within the family. Yeah,
you know, I really like that. And then you know,
similar to how I asked you when it comes to
the PLO series, how are you feeling about the schedule?
Is this something that you're going to change for next time?
I listen, you had Mory's mix. People were kind of like,
what the hell is this? But also people loved it.
I think at the end of the.
Speaker 3: Day, Yeah, look, I think the I think the first
four events aren't changing, right, five K horse, five K
a game, ten K horse, ten K game.
Speaker 1: The only thing that would probably change there is, like
you mentioned, maybe you add another.
Speaker 3: Five Yeah, and I think the five K we would
add is probably like, well, no, I want.
Speaker 1: To That's the one everyone keeps talking about.
Speaker 3: I think we want to do and a lot of
players agree with me. But we'll keep kind of surveying.
This is is a limited dealer's choice, so a ten
game dealer's choice. You know, we think the twenty one
game mix is a big step, but it's going to
ten might keep might fit better with the five K
horse and eight game players. The Mores mix, we wanted
to try something different. We've been trying things different in
every series, and you know we for this one, we
wanted it all hot one winner limit game mix. People said,
why do we have Omaha Hi in it? Yet they
still played it. So seventy entrants amazing turnout.
Speaker 1: Seveny entries. You're you're keeping Morey's mix got to come back?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, so I may sure, we may keep it.
We may it may become Chino's mix.
Speaker 1: By the way, Mary got second.
Speaker 3: And it's funny because he wouldn't have played unless if
it wasn't named if it was named Tim's Mix, he
wasn't playing, So I kind of forced him to play,
and then he ran that up to a second place finish.
Speaker 2: So kudos to Maury, but I kind of I was talking.
Speaker 3: To Chino, and China's like, you should give me an
event if I win this series. I was like, it's
not a bad idea. So Chino's mix is in discussion,
it's in negotiating, it's in contract. We'll see what kind
of Chino cooks up there. Because it might be too crazy.
It might be too crazy.
Speaker 1: You can call it Chino's mix. You can kind of
give him some parameters that he has to work within,
you know, some different games that he has to like
pick from or whatever, and yeah, we go from there.
I think that that would be cool.
Speaker 3: And there was a lot of complain There was a
lot of you know, they will asked a lot of
questions about the fifteen K Dealer's choice. You know, why
are we going from ten to fifteen? And main reason
was I wanted to. It was a good step up.
You go from all these tens, you know, the five
to five, the three tens you get to all fifteen
than a twenty five K.
Speaker 2: The other point is the Dealer's Choice.
Speaker 3: It's it's the smallest player pool, you know, because it's
the most unique kind of skills set with all these
other games. So it was kind of that old saying,
you know, if you're going to play ten, you're going
to play fifteen in a way.
Speaker 2: And it showed that.
Speaker 1: Shout out Daria Summertinea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it showed with the unique entrance, it showed with
its field size that you know, it didn't it didn't
change a lot, you know, it just if anything, it
just put more money in the prize well for these
guys to win. And we thought, you know, it might
attract a few more people to come out play that
and then into the twenty five into the hundred. So
for example, like Jason Mercier or you know, Phil Stenheim,
a gen race that they came for the Dealer's Choice
and the twenty five k then the hunter K.
Speaker 2: So I think it work with that.
Speaker 3: Don't say we'll change that, it's just what do we
want to do with more's makes? Do we want to
add another five k? And that's kind of the only tweaks,
I'll probably think about.
Speaker 1: Making I definitely think you need to continue down the
path of adding another five K and make it to
make this eight events. I think eight events works. One
of the reasons why I say that, and even even
though I know it does lead into the hunter K,
super high Rollerball mixed, is that I want to give
people enough opportunity to like feel like the person who
won the leaderboard like actually performed well, which you want
more volume?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right enough.
Speaker 1: Now, you obviously can't have twenty five tournaments. It's just
it's not possible. But so I think the eight works,
and then I would add it on the front end,
you know, because I think that having like those three
five k's and like kind of you know, having those
as quote unquote like feeders to the bigger stuff. But
are you even like there's there's barely any, if any
like five K mixed game tournaments in the world period,
Like you know at the World Series there's are there
any five k's or are they just are they just
like fifteen hundred three K and ten K and above?
Speaker 2: Right, what's the new Toss event? What's that is that
three K?
Speaker 1: So I think that's three K that replaced the three
K horse.
Speaker 2: Well okay, so yeah, then there's no real kind of case.
Speaker 1: It's like still that's still something like when it comes
to mix that like a Daniel mc grodni will show
up and play or a Nick Schulman play, right, you know,
just because mostly they want to play a pricier mixed game.
Speaker 3: Turns just no. You know, there's a five K eight
game at Resources World n ap T. But outside of that, yeah,
you know, outside of the World series, you're not really
finding high stakes mixed tournaments, you know, around town.
Speaker 2: It's very far and few in between.
Speaker 3: So you know, we're offering you know, ten days of
kind of unlimited mix game action.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I like it a lot. I think it's great. So, yeah,
find whatever the heck five K you got to put
in there. I like that idea of like a limited
dealer's choice. I think that's cool. Yeah, and yeah, and
then hopefully, you know, between having three five k's at
the start, you probably get a few more names. I
would hope that play a couple of the ten k's
and you know that sort of thing. So so yeah,
that's what that's what I would try and do.
Speaker 3: But we did We did see that too. We know
we saw tal Aviv. He took second in the eight game.
He played a few more events and we had never
heard of him. Samuel Stonefeld played the entire series and
then won that satellite played the Hunter K So you
did definitely see These five k's kind of give the
players opportunity to play a couple more events. So if
we do ad that third one, you know, who knows
what the leader would looks like. Maybe they chase a
few events, you know, try and sell a little bit
of action and try and become the next China Raim
and win the PGT Mixed Game Series title next year.
Speaker 1: Something that I thought would would work great for the
Mixed Game Series. I just think I think this crowd
it would work great for it is if we did
a twenty five K esque fantasy league and we did
the draft the day before, because all these guys are
the guys that do the twenty five K fantasy like you,
you couldn't Yes, you could do one ahead of USBO,
but like you're not getting Alex Foxen to come on
down to the studio and like draft the team.
Speaker 3: It's been total to me, this is right. I think this.
Speaker 1: Group is the group that plays the twenty five K.
So like you could do like, you know, a two K,
like a twenty five hundred dollars buying fantasy league ahead
of time. Yeah, and like you could just draft the
night before and like we all hang out in the
studio and fucking eat pizza and you know, have some
fun with it, right, that would be super fun.
Speaker 2: I mean you could do it for the plot series too.
Speaker 3: I know something I know when you look at the
twenty five K Fantasy and the teams that the twenty
on teams that Daniel has in that they're pretty much
controlled by mixed game guys. So yeah, it does make
more sense to be aligned with the mixgame series. And
obviously you know, let's Daniel, let's talk about it next year. Well,
let's shy and work this out.
Speaker 1: I think you should you should talk to you should
talk to Odi be and gregorch because they do the
Gregorich League year, which is like that price point.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I think that because because you see it
every year with the big twenty five K Fantasy, guys
get drafted and they kind of go a little bit harder,
or they seek backing, or they maybe get some financial
help from the teams that drafted them, and they play
a little bit more, so maybe it does a little
bit better for the numbers then, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in twenty five hundred dollars. You know, I'm
in fantasy poker. I'm fucking there.
Speaker 2: Let's go some.
Speaker 1: I'm sewing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I think that you're not the first one to bring
it up.
Speaker 3: It's been brought up a couple of times by but
players and fans. So hey, this series is what it
I think it fits the best with and you know,
let's let's try and squeeze us in next year.
Speaker 1: As it pertains to the PGT leaderboard. We got Eric Blair.
That might not be a name you've you've heard in
a long time unless you've obviously been following the PGT,
because he's been. He's been playing quite sporadically for I
would say three four five years before this PGT season. Yeah,
he popped in the studio heavy now and then, but
now he's in there for everything other than mixed, he's
in there. He leads the way with eleven and fifty
seven points. Blair is doing extremely well this season. Thirteen cashes,
six final tables, four podium finishes, two wins. He's cash
for one point one seven four million dollars. He's ahead
of Alex Foxen who's in second, Chino Reems and third.
Kristen Foxen is in fourth, and then Joey Wiseman is
in fifth. It's also wild to see both Fox's in
the top five. Freaking crazy. So, I mean, Eric Blair,
this guy is just he's having a monster season. It
seems like every time he shows up for a series
in the studio, he's having a bunch of cashes, making
a few final tables. What did he have it? The
USPO was eight events, he cashed six times.
Speaker 3: He cashed the first five events. So tis yea type
the record that Roger Johnson held from lost year's USBO
five consecutive PGT major cashes.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just wild. As I mentioned, you know,
in in recent years he's been playing a bit more sporadically.
I mean, what what can you say about this guy's resurgence?
I mean, and like in general, I think that this
says something about the opportunity that the PGT presents. That
if you have the money and you think you have
the chops, like you could come out and be Eric Blair.
Why not?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, like I always want I want these
new faces on top, pushing the narrative of the PGT
that it's not what the higher roll the world used
to be. So it's great to see a new name.
I would say, new face, you know on PGT side
of things on top. And after he cashed that fifth time,
I said, hey, congrats, he tied the record.
Speaker 2: You're also first on both leaderboards.
Speaker 3: He goes, I know, like but like not like he's
like he's he understands everything that's going on. He understands
the leaderboards, he knows where he is on the PGT leaderboard,
he's reading, he gets it all. He's you know, sharing
all the social posts we're making. I think he's locked
in on being number one in nine months when the
season wraps up. So I think we're going to see
him at every PGT stop, you know, going forward. Obviously
he's going to play the World Series. You know, wouldn't
surprise me at all if we see him in a
couple of days down in Texas, you know, for the
Texas Poker Up. I think he's going to chase points.
I think he's basically the Jeremy Osmas of this season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard both sides of going to Texas. I've
heard some people like I think I heard Jeremy say
he's not going to Texas. He's heard to me. I've
heard some other people say, and they are going to Texas.
So you know, we'll see who goes to Texas who doesn't.
But Okay, as it pertains to Jeremy like and going
to Texas, he puts in enough volume when it comes
to the PGT anyway that like, I don't think he
needs to go to Texas, for example, but I would
expect people like, you know, I don't know the Sam Laskowitz,
is Nick Seward, David Coleman's of the world to be
in Texas.
Speaker 2: David Coleman's definitely not going He's going on.
Speaker 1: I know, Like that's the type of group that I like,
Matthew McEwen like, like the guys who are like kind
of that next group that's like coming up on the PGT,
Like I would expect them to go there, you know.
Speaker 3: Especially if you think he was going to WVT Choctaw
that's two days later, you might as well just go Texas.
Parker open and then chocktaw so yeah, like the McEwans
and like, what.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna do? Poker's poker, go go play?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you go? Are you gonna go to South Point
with man Donnie?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Are you gonna go play Texas?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean listen, maybe Sam Lasquitz is out obviously because
he just had a baby, But other than that, like
you know, I think those other guys should for sure
be there. I don't see why not. I mentioned the
two Foxes being in the top four. You know, Alex's second,
Kristen is fourth, and sixteen points separate them. Kristin was
up on top of the leaderboard. Alex has had a
resurgence with the Polo series and then the USPO where
he's now, you know, overtaken her, and he said second. Overall,
it's crazy to me to see how well they're doing.
Not that we don't know how good they are. We
certainly know how good both Alex and Kristen are at poker.
They're freaking incredible. Are they for sure Poker's most powerful couple? Ever?
I mean, who, like ever, who is better? Like we
can say obviously right now, yes, but ever, who's better.
Speaker 3: Skill or I'm I, oh, well, who's better than them?
I mean, if we're talking power, I'm I'm sorry, but
Gentilian Phil Lax still hold that?
Speaker 1: Please mate? Have they played one PGT event?
Speaker 3: Yes, they have, both of them have actually, but no,
it's if we're doing power like I think they so win.
Speaker 2: If we're doing a skill, it's the Fox's and the Fox.
Speaker 1: Power power rankings.
Speaker 3: I mean Ryan now, yeah, but I mean Jen and
Phil aren't that far below.
Speaker 2: It's Gentillian Phil Lack.
Speaker 1: Stop up, stop, You're ridiculous, all right, Nick Shulman, he
leads the way with most cases. He's got fourteen cashes
so far, he's got eight final tables, so he's got
the most cashes fourteen eight final tables, is tied with
Chino Reem also has eight final tables.
Speaker 3: Is this a.
Speaker 1: Season like we saw from Jeremy Osmas last year where
Jeremy had I think it was like his twenty first
cash that he finally won a tournament. It was the
second during the second PGTPLO series, and I think he
won like the one of the fifteen games or something
like the second to last Evan or whatever. So is
this what we're gonna see from Shulman this year just
just just continuing to get close but never actually like
get a trophy.
Speaker 3: Well, just for the record, Osm has in twenty twenty
three cash twenty times, no wins. Twenty twenty four he
had twenty seven cashes for two wins. Those two wins
were one very late at that PLO series and then
one I was obviously the PGT Championship. So essentially forty
seven cashes, two wins. I think Nick Sureman is this
year is gonna be this year? Is Jeremy Osmus. Yeah,
forteen cashes so far, which is a hell of a lot.
Hasn't you know, got He's got the final three four times,
you know, hopefully he gets maybe he can win a
WSB bracelet and you know, being nominee for the whole
but otherwise, yeah, I definitely see Jeremy Ozma's two point
out here.
Speaker 1: And then we you know, we already talked about this,
but Shannon Shor is back up in the top ten,
sitting ninth. Do you think he has a chance to
become Player of the Year just with how red hot
he is? Can like, can someone like can someone like
Shannon Shoor do it? Can someone like Eric Blair do
it like or is or is like the PGT player
of the year. That's the player that finishes the regular
season with the most points. Is that almost always gonna
be reserved for an Alex Fox and a Jeremy Osmas,
Daniel Legron, Steven Chidwick like those guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, you have to be out of play more events.
And there's so many points in other games, especially at
the World Series, with the PLO tournaments, with the mixed
game tournaments. So that's where the ozimuses and the the
Granders of the world have such an advantage. For someone
like Shannon Shaw to be contending, he's gonna have to
have continue his start of the year where he's won
five tournaments in twenty twenty five, for another eight months,
you know.
Speaker 2: So it's going to be very tough. It's obviously doable.
Speaker 3: He could have a deep run in the main event,
you know, he could win another twenty five K you know,
the World Series or at the Studio doable. It's it's
just a real uphill climb for only a no limit
holding guy.
Speaker 1: Now we're a little bit over. I mean we're about
a quarter of the season in right, I mean, how
many how many events do you think we're going to
have this season?
Speaker 3: So that was event forty. We kind of averaged that
one thirty to one fifty. We have eighty six events
once the World Series ends, and I would expect we,
you know, we're probably going to be maybe a little
bit more than last year where it was one thirty two.
So let's call it one forty. So we've had forty
of one forty.
Speaker 1: So we're around a third to a quarter to a
third other percent a quarter to a third of the
way there. I flubbed that, but you guys get the point.
You know, we're starting to kind of see the leaderboard
like take shape. Obviously, there's gonna be a lot of
movement the Texas Poker Open, which is you know, Tim
and I will hit on in a second, but you know,
that's obviously coming up, but that's not going to have
like a ton of points that that shift everything. Obviously,
the big thing is the World Series of Poker, which
has thirty events this year. I think that's the most
ever that qualify for the PGT, right, I think last
year was twenty nine. Yeah, thirty, So there's gonna be
a lot of movement when it comes to the WSOP.
But you know how like, how do you think this
is all is shaping up, this this leaderboard right now,
do you think it's going to kind of hold form
or you know, what are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 3: I mean, no, it's not gonna hall. We're going to
say massive movement once that WSP hits. You know, we're
going to start the WSP with a mister Bownie, the
Omaha High Love, a Mixed Higher, all the dealers sort.
There's just it's going to be chaos. We're going to
see all kinds of new names and faces, you know,
enter that top you know, one hundred players that top
forty players. But if we look at the kind of
tour as a whole and we see who's you know,
in this top forty right now, I think it gives
a lot of them a good kind of starting point
for the rest of the season. Like you look at
Neil Warren, you know we touched on him on Nick
Seward or these guys with four hundred and eighty points,
they're sitting seventeenth and eighteenth. You know they're going to
play most of the rest of our series. You know,
they're going to play the World Series you know, they're
also about halfway to what they need to qualify for
the championship. So these guys have good starts and if
they can just you know, keep going, they're going to
make it. You know, you look at the guys outside
or just on the fringe, you know, justin Saliba or
Steven Song, you know they're going to find points. Josh
arih he's going to play a bunch of makes and
p low. He's going to get, you know, push his
tally up in the World Series. So just looking at
who has points, I think it's a good sign for
kind of PGT events once the World Series ends and
what we're doing in the back half of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so thirty events at the WICIP are going to
count towards the PGT or they're going to be PGT
qualifying events. Obviously, everyone that's that's really putting a lot
of volume, in a lot of focus on the PGT.
They're going for million dollar championship qualification. You know, they
probably also have some of their eyes or some of
their set sights on the Player of the Year title,
which comes with a fifty thousand dollars prize, Like do
you think that do you think the players are basically
aware of kind of where they're sitting, what the season means,
the leader board, and then how many events count for
the DOUBSIP. Like one thing that I'll point out, just
anecdotally is I was in the booth with Jeremy Becker
and he was like, Wow, thirty events count this year,
Like so he kind of wasn't aware. But you know,
I mean, poker player is going to poke a player
at the end of the day. You know, do you
think that these players are aware of it, of everything
the PGT is doing, and then are they going to
kind of build their was ap schedules around PGT stuff.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't think a lot of them. I
look have looked, you know, real deeply at the World
Series schedule yet, and I don't think they're going to
be picking events because it qualifies for PGT points at
this point in time. You know, like Jeremy Becker, he's
if there's a ten k, you know, twenty five K
high roller at the World Series, or there's a eight
hundred at the win with two million dollar guarantee, you know,
I don't know what he's going to choose, but I
don't think the decision is going to rest on PGD
points for one or another. But yeah, I think a
lot of people don't realize that there are thirty events
that qualify for PGD points. But that's not because they
don't know that. They're just not looking at the full
kind of WSP schedule, right. They're kind of creating their
own schedule and if events falling that they're not you know,
lining up every event and saying, oh, yeah, I'm gonna
play these thirty PGT events.
Speaker 1: But what about somebody like Eric Blair, for example, Like,
do you think he's gonna be like because I mean,
you mentioned he's obviously very aware of everything that's going on,
so is he. Maybe it's not that it necessarily influences
everything with him, but you know, maybe it does where
he's like, Okay, I'm gonna play more ten K plus
events this year.
Speaker 3: For him, maybe he maybe might play a few more
ten k you know plus events, But I think that's
more because he's had such a good start to the
year for his kind of bankroll. So yes, he kind
of yes and no answer there kind of see how
it kind of all all plays that I guess.
Speaker 1: And then also during the summer, what's what's going on
at the studio.
Speaker 3: We got eleven Aria hi Rollers renamed that, but right
now eleven Area high Rollers, six PLO all ten k's
and then five fifteen K no limit hold them high
rollers overlapping the opening days of the main event, So
eleven high roller events. Studio is going to be busy
with some high roller op A tournaments.
Speaker 1: And those are always pretty well attended. Right The no.
Speaker 3: Limbit ones, especially two years ago, the PLO ones were crushing.
Last year is a little bit down, and I think
that's because there's so much PLO now.
Speaker 2: So we'll see how these ones go.
Speaker 3: Basically just giving players an opportunity to pick up points
on during those when we think is the best part
of the whole summer schedule.
Speaker 1: Where do you think the cutoff is going to be
for the top forty? I think it's what was it
lasting here?
Speaker 3: So the official top forty last year was nine to
sixty nine. Stephen Chidwick was fortieth, but with the people
that didn't qualify cash wise, it dropped down to eight
eighty one. You know, the fortieth place this year is
going to be like a little bit under that, we're
going to say call it low nine hundreds, and then
the actual top forty is going to be the fortieth
player that qualifies. I wouldn't surprise me if he had
less than eight hundred points, just because of the opt
outs and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I think the cutoff is going to be a thousand. Okay,
I'm going the other way. Who are some of your
early surprises on the leaderboard.
Speaker 3: I think we've touched on Eric Blair enough, but definitely
Eric Blair. I guess another one is, you know, Pad's
had such a hot start and he's you know, backed
it up by playing the Mixgame series, playing the PLO series,
playing the USPO. He's obviously you know if you follow
him on Instagram, he's heading a Europe for a little
vacation right now before he comes back. So seeing him
kind of keep pushing through and chasing the points and
you know, like he like, we just can't touch on
he has seven hundred and twelve points. You know, he
might only need another hundred to qualify. Another name there,
Michael Monchek. You know he's played some events here and there,
but we've seen him Pogo Cup, play every event Mixed
Games one hundred K mix came out for USPO. He
skipped the PLO series, which is a little surprising because
he does play PLO. But you know, seeing those who
kind of putting in volume, who have never really put
in volume on the PGT is great. And then you know,
bit down the list, you're looking at these guys that
you know you touched on that group of like the
Sam Laskowitz So you got Nick c where You've got
Neil Warren, who's new, you know, Matthew McEwan. These guys
are you know, Jeremy Becker, et cetera. That I just
seem to be firing everything Land and Tice stuff like that.
So good to see that kind of next batch of
kind of local pros putting in volume in the studio,
chase in points, chasing PGG titles and all that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, Becker's got some work to do.
Speaker 3: He's having a terrible start of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's getting getting He's getting crushure that. I mean
that that leads me to my next question. You know,
who are your early letdowns, Like who's not performing.
Speaker 3: Jerry Jeremy Becker has played at least it's five thirteen
twenty one events. He's got one cash for twenty five k,
so he needs to do a lot of work. He's
probably bubbled four events, so he needs to kind of
turn all that round.
Speaker 1: Jan I will say that he's gotten screwed in a
lot of spots. Some of it is not his fault.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, compared to last year, Jereymy Osmas is
not having a great year, but he still has six
cashes at three hundred plus points, so you know, he's
still he's still getting on base. As they say, I think,
you know, honestly, they're the two kind of biggest names
that you know, really stand out to me. Another one,
I guess, Dylan Lindy normally plays all our series hold
Them plo and mixed. He's done some traveling, et cetera,
so he's missed some stuff. He's only got six cashes
two hundred and fifteen points. Stephen Chidwick another one former
Player of the Year, three cashers. Obviously he doesn't live
here anymore, so has some traveling that he does, and
he obviously goes to play Trent. But you know, one
hundred and seventy point one hundred and seventy four points
for him, but you know, he'll probably likely pick up
a lot during the World Series. So there's a couple
of like the bigger names, and then you know, Stephen Song,
Joseph Chug, these guys still kind of you know, Anthony
who still choosing to do a little bit of traveling
over playing poker. Probably healthy for their you know, relationships,
healthy for their mind and help, you know, but you know,
I want you in the studio playing every event. If
I'm being selfish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm surprised a little bit with David Peters.
You know, I thought by now he we'd be past
the you know, the new dad stuff and he would
just be putting in his normal like full volume. And
we obviously know how good David Peters is. You know,
he does have six cashes, yes, but no podium finishes
as of right now, and only two hundred and twenty
seven points, which you know, like you said, getting on base, Yes,
but you know he's got to have to turn it
up a bit. I would add Carrie Katz, he's been
putting in the volume. Yeah, he has five cases, but
he has yet to make a final table. So you know,
Carrie's got some work to do as well. And then
David Coleman, who's probably not put in as much volume
as he did last season. You know, obviously had that
scorching hot start last season, but you know, David with Coleman,
I think needs to start getting to work. And then
another one I think is Brock Wilson. You know, I
kind of expect him to maybe not necessarily like be
in the top forty, but be challenging, you know, be
within twenty spots of the top forty, and he's he
hasn't been in the studio like a whole time, and
then he hasn't been performing of course, so you know,
we'll see how how that stuff goes. But you know,
those are kind of the names that that stick out
to me as you know, I mean, we call him letdowns,
but it's just you know, lack of performance right now.
But it's obviously a long season. There's a huge chunk
of stuff, as we outlined during the summer for the
World Series, so you know, plenty of plenty of movement
still to be had, points to be grabbed, all that
sort of stuff. So so we'll see. This is now
the fifth season of the PGT, you know, has the
leaderboard race, you know, the race for Player of the
Year getting into the championship? Has that all kind of
evolved how you had hoped? You know, where it's it
really is, Like it's not just a points race. It's
definitely evolved into you know, a big giant competition within
the high stakes community. It has a lot of season
long narratives. The guys you know in Gales, they really
get behind it, they fight for it. They are for
the most part pretty aware of all the leader boards.
So has it evolved to like what you wanted it
to be or does it still have more to go?
Is it a head of pace behind pace? Like what's
your kind of thoughts there?
Speaker 3: I think it's still has a little bit more to go.
This year has been coming off last year. I think
we see a lot of players Okay, I want to
be part of this, this free roll, this million dollar
free roll. And we see that really developed in the
latter stages of the season, especially with PGD Lost Chance.
So I think that we're always going to trend up
at the end of the year. Season on season. You know,
we just kind of touched on texts PO grow up
in and players. Yeah, I'm not going to go we
kind of want when we start expanding the tour and
branching out, we kind of want people to really, you know,
choose us and go to all our stuffs, play all
our events. Maybe next year we see a bit more
of that and a bit more picking and choosing our
events over everyone else's. But either way, if you look
at our numbers, numbers are increasing, I think across the board,
so everything's kind of on the up. And the points
race is obviously important. Qualifying for the free roll is important,
and making that a real event that people want to
be part of. Like, how do we you know, this year,
can we make it a bit more special somehow? Like
what can we do from our side the PGT slash
Progago just to make it more of a spectacle. You know.
I think we've talked about that a lot, and hopefully
this year we can kind of really just turn it up,
make it an extra special event, and really hammer it
home that the is the where you want to be.
Speaker 1: Playing one more letdown while we're at it, red Linn,
where's he been?
Speaker 2: He's chilling in China with family.
Speaker 1: Well that's not where the PGT is.
Speaker 3: I not, Citie, I.
Speaker 2: Got to take a break, Okay, not even coming to
Defendi's title.
Speaker 1: Unreal unreal. I mean I brought him up to segue
into the next topic we're going to talk about here. Briefly,
Texas Poker Open next up on the PGT schedule. So
the US Poker Open is obviously just wrapped up, the
leaderboards heating up. Tim and I have talked a lot
about it. We are now shifting focus to Houston. Texas
Poker Open is back, baby. It features once again a
two million dollars guaranteed main events. That main event runs
April twenty third through twenty eighth down at Champions Club.
There are also four fifty one dollars Nolan Man hold
Him high rollers, so the series already started. The Texas
Poker Opan runs the sixteenth April through the twenty ninth,
a bunch of smaller buying stuff, but then within the
schedule there are a total of five PGT qualifying events. You, sir,
will be headed there pretty soon. What are you most
excited about forgetting back?
Speaker 3: I am looking forward to eating a steak every day.
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say that.
Speaker 3: The lunch and dinner. I'm not even joking. Food there
is amazing. I love the food there. I just love
the atmosphere of that room. I enjoy that the staff
are great, they're friendly, focus great. I kind of just
love everything about Hughes. I do also like that, you know,
we're in the studio it feels sometimes twenty four to seven,
right and you know, we do have the World Series
coming up, so that would be a nice change of pace.
But this is like a nice change of pace before
the grueling summer, you know, getting out of the studio,
getting to a different state, seeing some different kind of
poker and styles down there, kind of what appeals to me.
And you know, from the more PGT perspective, I think
it's healthy for the tour to have a variety of
locations where events are held. Now, you know, we're kind
of touch on a lot of players aren't going to
this one or they've got other things on. That's okay,
that's you know, it happens. But at least we're providing
the opportunity for our normal players to travel and accumulate points. Also,
it also helps a tour that we can get some
people into our system. You know, the winner of the
main event is probably going to have anywhere between three
hundred and four hundred points. That's going to put them
in a pretty good spot heading in the World Series.
You know you're someone like you know, Jonathan Tamaya last
year finished a final table with the Texas Prokeer Open
main event. He obviously won the WSOP main event, then
he chased that third cash to qualify. So who knows
where people are going to.
Speaker 2: Take their poker career this this year?
Speaker 3: Yea, but in Texas, when I see some people grab
some points, grab some cash's kind of gives them their
springboard on the PGT for you know, the rest of
the season.
Speaker 1: You know, Jeff Platt will be down there as well.
He put a lengthy post on Twitter earlier today about it.
Let me just hit on kind of what he said.
He said, I'll be at Champions Club Texas soon for
the Texas Poker Roban. He's so excited. One of the
best stops of the year. Here's why. Number one nice hotel.
Every room in the building newly renovated. Can you go downstairs, boom,
there's a poker room. That's cool. I have yet to
be there, you can speak to this, but I mean
the photos and everything look very nice.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously walking right downstairs and just being able to
jump into a game seems amazing. Great food You've already
hit on that, but Jeff, you know backs you up here.
Not just great for a poker room, great food period.
Chef Connie is simply elite. Some of the best steaks
you've ever had. In the replies Alex Livingston, best poker
food I've ever experienced. Buy a mile. So there you go. There.
Terrific service and hospitality both on and off the fell
Isaac Trumbo and his team treat players so well. The
poker staff is filled with some of the faces you'll
recognize from their time spent at some of the top
tournaments in Las Vegas. Jeff added, the reason why we're
talking about it the Poker Go Tour stops here, so
it'll it ensures you'll be playing top quality tournaments set
up by the commission himself. Tim Duckworth go shout out
to you, Tim. Meetup game featuring seventeen times WS Bracelet
winner Phil Helmyth on Wednesday night, that's April twenty third.
Speaker 3: And zero time WS tolet Wintering.
Speaker 1: Tim duck with you're going to be in there too.
Speaker 3: I know we're going to be in there.
Speaker 1: You'll be in there too. I believe I saw on
the flyer one three nolim At hold on for me.
Speaker 3: So we may sell some action on poker Steake, but
we'll be in there.
Speaker 1: There you go, And that starts at seven pm local
time on Wednesday, the twenty third at Champions. The poker
action is well, Buffalo Hanks, Brent Hanks, final table, the
main event last year, enough said, so shots fired there,
so yeah, and then we're gonna do live streaming of
the Cash Festival, and then we'll also have coverage of
the Texas Poker Open main events starting with day one.
B on that one. So those are the nuggets from
Jeff's post earlier today. So he's he's amped up. I
know you're ready to get down there and go. So
I'll be jealous, but I'll be sweating from afar. Give
us some predictions. Who do you do you do you
know any names that are going there? Who do you
think is gonna do well? Like? What what do you
think the numbers draw for the high roller events? You
got seven seventy three?
Speaker 3: Was it seven thirty three? I think it was whatever?
Speaker 1: Close?
Speaker 3: Well, look you know we have touched on it is
top we have some players that you know where they're
last year not coming for variety of reasons. So that
makes us a little worried. If we're being honest, you know,
we've got a big guarantee. Got to try and hit that.
So that's the first goal, just get to just just
hit that two million dollar prize pull. But I you know,
I honestly just want to see a good field, a
lot of locals, a lot of satellite winners getting in there,
making day two making a run. I think that's really
good and you know, healthy for the Houston playpool. But
I think it's Champions Club. You know, we've taken a
tour there. Now. This is our third tour stop. You know,
obviously we did this in April last year. We have
the Texas Peeler roundup in November. You know, this our
third time. They're Champions is really kind of stamping their
foot on being the kind of premiere spot in Houston
for poker and the people around them, the other poker
rooms in the area. Kind of a kind of yep,
we understand that we'll kind of operate around yous, so
hopefully we see an incredible turnout, you know, of all
locals and hopefully the players kind of enjoy themselves. That's
what kind of matters. We want to put on a
good series, put on a good show. We've got the
cash game streams, we have the meetup game, we have
the main event streams. So it's a good two weeks
of poker in Texas. Sweet.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, there will be coverage live streaming coverage
on PokerGO dot com. You guys can check out pokerg
dot com slash schedule for the schedule details there. Tim's
gonna be handling a bunch of the live updates on
PGT dot com, so you guys can follow along there
as well. I don't think we got anything else to
talk about. We've talked about a whole bunch of stuff.
Got everyone caught up. Two hour show. Let's rock and roll, baby, Yeah,
you got anything else for us?
Speaker 3: I guess we'll talk off to Texas, all right, cool,
I might try and play the main event. I'm gonna okay,
let me ask you, okay, ready, I was gonna get
their Sunday night.
Speaker 2: There's one hundred, huh.
Speaker 3: I said.
Speaker 1: The answer is yes, play.
Speaker 3: No, there's one hundred. Yeah, there's one hundred and fifty
dollars all in all fault time. I'm not gonna play
that the next I was gonna play a three hundred
dollars something one day. Should I just play the three
hundred dollars satellite instead?
Speaker 2: Of course, I just try and get in. Yeah. Good,
Jeff and Brent can cash.
Speaker 3: Surely I have a chance.
Speaker 1: Has Jeff cashed?
Speaker 3: He cashed? Yeah?
Speaker 2: They both cashed?
Speaker 1: Well, I know, I know brand obviously cash, yes, whatever,
but I didn't. I couldn't remember if Jeff did or not. Yeah,
I mean get in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1: All right, cool, all right, Well, long show, but we
had to get everyone caught up and everything. Again. Apologies
for the quote unquote break that we took.
Speaker 2: Remember those code words, go into them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember those code words. They were there were
somewhere in the middle of this episode. Go find them
and enter them for the promotion so you can have
shots to win a seat to the PGT million dollars Championship.
All right, that's gonna do it for us. My name
is Donna Peters, his name is Tim Duckworth, and we
will talk to you guys next time.
Speaker 3: So yeah, express