The Poker Zoo Podcast

This week Dr. Robert Samuels returns to the Zoo to talk about the latest round of poker cheating accusations and scandals. Robert recently polished up an old solution – can the online game operators work together to fight cheats? Can there be a governing body to adjudicate poker? While I cynically don’t find this sort of organization feasible, Robert makes some compelling points. He al...

We stay in the live streets this week and talk hands with Ralph B., a low-stakes cash game reg I know through Red Chip Poker . As for many players, Covid shook up Ralph’s poker life, and in his case, decided it was time to turn a break-even passetemps into a winning habit. Today, we find out how the new approach is doing and get into some strategy. We also get a little deeper into the Detroi...

Dean is unleashed this week and talks with a familiar face, east coast tournament grinder, limit player, and general smart-ass Yaser Al-Keliddar. If you’re on the tournament joyride, you know Yaser or should get to know him – he’s a great table presence. In today’s pod, Al-Keliddar recounts his rough introduction to the game involving the Trump Taj, a reluctant vehicle, and...

Vagabond vet DGAF called him “Tom Brady Jr.” but in reality, the story is more interesting than just always getting there at the right time. Las Vegas live pro Nate Serisky takes us through his year – well, not of living dangerously exactly, as he’s on stake and decent with money management – but of truly being a poker player and making it happen in a pool that has dr...

Thomas Pinnock of Zenith Poker returns to the Zoo to review his most challenging year in poker. In addition to releasing a controversial new set of exploitative ranges and taking on a six-max challenge, Thomas kicked up a series of related kerfuffles with a video mocking many preflop ranges . Trouble followed on multiple fronts, and I get some of the details from him – including whether any...

Today we go behind the scenes and talk to Shaun Yaple , General Manager of the Hustler Casino in Gardena, California. I find out what it takes to run a card room and where does poker fits in. We discuss the unusual ecosystem of L.A. Poker, including some advice for all struggling card rooms and poker rooms. Shaun also tells us about the origin of the freshly popular Hustler Casino Live , L.A. poke...

On the cusp of a new year, new ventures. One is returning guest Michael Lukich’s two-pronged effort to improve your game through better solver and data study, Solver School. It’s still in creation, but Michael has burned the ships: we find out that he has quit his day job and is committed to poker and poker consultation. The question I ask him is, in a now crowded marketplace of tradin...

It’s our holiday podcast. When we last checked in with TBR member Luka Vitasovic, he was settling into a long “coaching for profits” contract with Nick Howard’s Poker Detox program. Today, in a continuation of our CFP series, we find out how that’s gone. Is Luka crushing or mushing? Here’s the rest of our Coaching for Profits series. PZ47 with Alvin Lau PZ43 wit...

It’s time to reach across the country and check in with Poker Zoo co-host Dean Martin, who lives and plays on the other side of the garbage heap. How did Dean (and Mrs. Dean) get through the ‘rona and what is he up to now? More from Dean and Persuadeo on learning poker . Unfortunately, we had to cancel, since the recording was made, the December 16th meetup game.  Hand #1 2/5 500 eff,...

It’s back to what promises to be a bumpy podcast grind with Zoo favorite Jason Burge, aka JamBasket Poker, one of Michigan’s big online cash winners. We hit as many topics as possible with some drive-by commentary. Burge is already kind enough to offer some valuable analysis and recap on his obscure JamBasket Youtube channel; pretty good, player-observant stuff in a world of often irre...

Poker, crypto, and the Non-Fungible Token craze are all well-met bedfellows: exciting, profitable, and a little grimey. Overnight Monster and Bluff Barbarian creator Alvin Lau took a flyer on a new NFT project this year, Hungry Ghosts , and this is his story. Listen to him on today’s Zoo describe many of the truths of NFT projects and the interesting culture that drives them. Alvin is a prof...

It’s the end of an era at Twoplustwo , but the conversation, especially on controversial topics, doesn’t stop. Robert Samuels has been a major contributor to the gem of 2+2 media, its monthly magazine, and joins us today on the Zoo for poker psychology talk. Samuels is a double doctorate and professor at UC Santa Barbara who goes beyond rudimentary mental clarity exercises to look at t...

A special episode as the two co-hosts talk together for the first time in a while . Dean starts by getting all the details on the deep stack cash game I started at the Sahara Las Vegas in January. Dean brings up one of the most important questions that can be asked in the poker training field: why is it that so many players get so much help but see so little progress? Then, with a little segue mag...

If you play in the OOP deepstack training game , or more abstractly, in any online game, you’ve played a hand with Travis Moss. An increasingly reformed tight aggressive, Travis is a student of the game, with a lot of training sites and study behind him.  On reflection, Travis seems like a good example of a taking up poker successfully in middle age. He’s the squeaky wheel, someone una...

The question of what makes for a successful casino poker room has been on my mind because it has to be: I’ve been running the unusual Sahara deep-stack game and trying to reseed low stakes PLO as well. Hence this series of podcasts dedicated to questions about the industry including Steven Pique , Mason Malmuth , and Fernando Ortiz , each of whom represent a different but critical role in li...

Twoplustwo publisher and prolific author Mason Malmuth joins the Zoo to discuss a disagreement on luck and skill and how it influences the games, but it quickly turns into a broader conversation about what makes casino poker rooms go. That’s in part thanks to Mason’s announcement of his new book, a work in progress tentatively titled Cardrooms: Everything Bad; An Analysis of Those Area...

Today we get the perspective of the people who design and run the casino poker show, thanks to guest Steven Pique. Steven has climbed the poker industry ladder in classic fashion, starting with dealing on the WSOP circuit, moving to the Aria, and now running the Sahara Poker Room . We go over the details a poker room manager cares about, including how he picks out games and promotions. Steven rema...

Continuing our recent tour of contemporary poker coaches, today the Zoo welcomes Uri Peleg, formerly of Run It Once and now founder and head coach at Guerrilla Poker . Joined by online poker strategy innovator Grindcore, Guerrilla offers a very experienced and compelling take on the GTO/Exploitation paradigm that we’re always working with in contemporary poker. I talk with Uri about several...

Episode nine guest FAO returns to give us the word on the live poker market. After being a Vegasite for most of post-Black Friday, he’s resettled in the suddenly popular state of Texas, where everything is growing – including the poker. Fernando describes his search for the way out of LV and the lure of the Texas games inflamed by the poker vlogging boom. He discusses the games there a...

Instagram chip pornographer Fausto Valdez returns to the Zoo; has he been following the rules ? In any case, Fausto’s been splashing around L.A. long enough to get into the private games and see the real action, plus play some poker. He gives us the lowdown on his run to the high stakes, including a sweet hand where he makes the nuts on the turn versus four-high in a 60k pot: easy game. We g...

Mysterious poker training philanthropist? Imperturbable doctor who RNGs your diagnosis? Legendary Zynga shark? For our first podcast of the new year, I’m pleased to welcome Thomas Pinnock, the enigma who has created one of the most comprehensive poker learning communities on the web. Zenith Poker features every aspect of serious study, including a learning path, an advanced background text, long-f...

The year-ending edition of the Zoo. Suitably, I talk with The Back Room standby Jason Burge , author of the JamBasket series of videos. We go over his year in poker, and hit some highlights of the greater poker scene as well. (Apparently I already forgot about Phil Galfond: hey, but what have you done for me lately?) Our piece de resistance for this podcast is, however, Mindblowing Poker , a new b...

Today on the Zoo I interview Dr. Brian Space, scientist and 2+2 poker writer. Dr. Space came to my attention after Matt Berkey tweeted out the article “GTO, the Value of Information, and the Nature of the Solution to No-limit Hold ‘em,” which supported Matt’s long-held contention that “GTO” poker is not nearly fully explored even in the age of solvers. While I had nev...

Professional and coach Alvin Lau of Overnight Monster returns to tackle big subjects in poker. We start with an update on Alvin’s successful move to much bigger games. With that fun news behind us, we advance the discussion Porter and I had on the somewhat exaggerated worries about Real Time Assistance; discuss the noted Brian Space article and the essential difference between a GTO practiti...

I turn to none other than our co-host and production magic man Dean Martin to get the scoop on the Covid pandemic’s effect on the home game/private game scene. Poker has always been in a grey area legally, but with new wrinkles come new opportunities. Dean takes us through all of it, down to competing food offerings. We also get into some live low-stakes strategy. Speaking of, here’s a...