I used to be a poker player, now I’m a guy that plays poker.
Miami, FL
Joined June 2020
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That moment when a new era GTO player reads this
Here’s a short version of what Lauri was thinking whole hand
Pre- “J3dd ok not bad check”
Flop- “Ak4ssc I got shit check, but wait he can’t have shit, he would raise Ace or King or any two suited cards pre. How much u bet? I call u got shit”
Turn- Js “hmm well I have a good pair now, check, u betting 40 mill? U trying to buy this shit, (crowd now screaming Jumalon) wtf is this noise he’s still got shit I’ll show them, call”
River- 6s “well fuck, check. Omg this guys betting 180 mill, man this would really make me the greatest and I win if I’m right. Man I think I’m right. Wait what, u just told me to put it in, ok well fuck u got it, call. Damn, knew he had shit on the turn, fuck oh well” 😀
Hell yeah
Hey guys, for the next six weeks I will be hosting a radio show on Sirius XM called Poker Weekly, every Saturday at 8pm EST on channel 82, Mad Dog Sports Radio. Sirius hit me before the World Series about a trial type run, and if they like it they will cultivate more poker stuff, which would give other players looks to grow the game we love, and make some dough lol. This is a great honor for me, I never thought I would be doing stuff like this. We have some great guests lined up, what I could really use from you guys are some questions, and some hands. A big part of the show will be breaking hands down people send in, or maybe at some point we take live call ins also. Either comment here, or if say we have an insane torch on our hands but we still would like some insight, feel free to dm me. Same goes if trying to be a guest, hit me up. Thank you so much, hope everyone is well and once again it's Poker Weekly, the next six Saturday nights at 8pm EST , Sirius XM radio (or the Sirius XM app) channel 82 Mad Dog Sports Radio let's work.
Incredible story, and so well written. Thanks for sharing, Ash.
2014… I rolled up to the Bellagio with my entire bank account in cash. At the time, that meant a couple hundred dollars.
I sat down at a $1/$3 game with money I couldn’t afford to lose. But I wanted to play in a Vegas poker room so bad.
Almost immediately, I lost close to half my buy-in.
And then out walks Greg Mueller from Bobby’s Room.
The guy I had watched on Poker After Dark and ESPN. FBT = Full Blown Tilt. The same guy whose words had already changed the way I looked at poker… and he had absolutely no idea.
There I was in a tiny $1/$3 game, watching him walk past after probably playing pots worth more than an average house. I gave him the goofiest, somewhat starstruck smile as he passed by. I texted my friends on the Strip, “OMG, I just saw a poker pro I watch on TV.”
A little while later, he came back around. And then he sat down at my table. Just for fun.
This man had just come from the biggest cash game on the planet and sat down with us, running up a stack like it was nothing, while I was over there stressing about a couple hundred dollars.
We started talking, and I got to tell him how he unknowingly changed my life.
Rewind to 2013. I had just started watching poker, playing on Full Tilt, trying to figure out what the hell this game even was after discovering it at a team bonding night in college. I dusted off a couple hundred dollars on my credit card and lost sleep over it. But I was hooked. I didn’t know anyone in my life who played. I was just fascinated. So I did what so many of us did back then. I watched the WSOP Main Event on ESPN.
That’s when I saw it.
Greg was making a deep run, and they did a segment on him. He talked about retiring from professional hockey and being left with this competitive void. Then he found poker. He talked about how he realized he could outwit, outsmart, and outwork people at the table the same way he had on the ice. How poker gave him back that fire.
And something in me lit up.
Because I was living that EXACT moment.
I had just walked away from being a college athlete and basketball coach. And the hardest part wasn’t the lifestyle shift. It was losing that competitive part of myself. That thing that made me feel most alive. I didn’t know where to put it anymore.
It clicked… poker was not just gambling.
It was a battlefield for the mind.
Where you could outwork your competition. Just like in basketball. I loved that.
From that point on, poker was different to me. Still a tiny fish… but learning to swim.
So there I was a year later, sitting across from Greg at Bellagio, telling him that his ESPN segment had shaped the trajectory of my life.
We ended up talking for hours.
To this day, Greg is a friend, mentor, and one of the biggest inspirations in my journey through this game. And I still do not know if he fully understands that one ESPN segment helped rewire the way I saw my entire future.
So hearing the WSOP Main Event is coming back to ESPN brings all of it flooding back.
The nostalgia.
The DREAM.
Back then, watching the Main on ESPN felt so far away it almost didn’t seem possible. It felt like something that belonged to others. Surely not me.
And now I will be playing my fourth Main Event this summer, after cashing for the first time last year, after building a career and a life around this game that I once thought was just a card game on TV.
How insane is that?
What I love most about poker comes down to competitiveness. It has challenged my biggest insecurities, torn apart my mental walls, and demanded more of me in every element of life, not just at the table.
It’s not a card game. It’s a mind sport. And ESPN putting it back on the biggest stage in sports will create more moments like the one I had watching Greg all those years ago. More lightbulbs going off.
More athletes, competitors, and dreamers like me realizing this game is so much deeper than what it looks like on the surface.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
@wsop
You forgot to tag @Highon7ife
Darryll Fish retweeted
In defense of WSOP materially changing the rules and structure of the main event when people are playing for life changing money, they were stuck between two impossible alternatives: do it and accept universal criticism and revulsion, or hire seven people who can do their job
PSA/Useful hack for anyone concerned about the lack of dinner breaks in the @WSOP Main Event-
If you time it properly, you can order food on Uber Eats to be delivered to the side entrance aka “tour bus lobby” of Horseshoe on break.
Their projected delivery times are generally accurate, so if you time your order accordingly, you can collect your food on break.
I’ve ordered from @ProteinHouse1 this way several times, and I highly recommend it as a healthy and efficient option.
Another option is to use a service like Greens Culinary Group, which has been mentioned by @BigHuni
The new break schedule may not be preferable for many of us, but complaining isn’t going to change it, so the best thing we can do is to adjust and prepare as best we can.
Please RT for awareness.
@jeffplatt @tjreidpoker @pokerorg @PokerNews
Great write up with lots of pragmatic ideas for how to improve things 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Poker fans and poker players are two different groups of people (with some overlap) and I think WSOP.com could be used better to give the fans as much FOMO as possible and I wrote about it on The Overlay:
open.substack.com/pub/theove…?
Darryll Fish retweeted
Cute theory, let's play it out.
A monkey hoards a trillion bananas. The troop, enraged, beats him to death. They gather around the pile to feast at last.
But... oh wait, there is no pile.
It turns out the "bananas" were shares in a banana-launching company the dead monkey founded.
The shares were worth a trillion because he was alive to run it.
Now he is dead and the stock is worth $0.
The retarded monkeys have clubbed their way into a recession.
But it gets worse.
Half the "bananas" were tied up in a rocket that supplies bananas to monkeys on the far mountain who had no bananas at all.
Another chunk was tied up in a little satellite dish that beamed banana coordinates to the troop after a flood took out their trees.
So now they realized they beat to death the only monkey who knew how the dish worked.
So the monkeys sit there.
No bananas.
No rockets.
No coordinates to get more banananas.
Just a dead body and a powerful sense of fairness as they all now became infinitely poorer.
OH
And somewhere a smaller monkey watches the whole thing and quietly decides he will never build anything in front of these animals again.
I’m not really one to complain, but the @WSOP final table viewing/streaming experience is a real disappointment, especially after such high expectations being set by the quality and magnitude of the production set.
The excessive delay on the live stream combined with the lack of live updates, means that the only way to keep track of a friend/horse at a final table is to be there live…. Where there is no practical seating, no one announcing all-in confrontations, and only a small screen display to see hands in play -without knowing who has what.
I went to sweat a friend at the 25k final table, and was so bored and unable to see stacks or what was happening during hands, that I left almost immediately.
I know this is essentially year 1 of a new era, and the return to ESPN is no doubt a thrilled update, but I know I’m not the only one who really hopes the live viewing/streaming experience is thoroughly re-evaluated.
Thought I would share one of the best products/hacks I’ve discovered for live poker, especially during @WSOP when germs are rampant and people always get sick.
I found this Japanese hand sanitizer a few years ago and I’ve been carrying it with me pretty much 24/7 since then. Comes in a variety of great aromas, easy to carry and doesn’t leave sticky/oily residue like a lot of sanitizers do. 10/10 product, IMO.
a.co/d/08iWWGLY
@KevmathVegas is there anything unique about the $1700 “Circuit Championship” event? Other than the buy-in?
Darryll Fish retweeted
Great Final Table here @WPT @HardRockHolly!
@DarryllFish and I in the booth today, please tune in and comment, we will be interacting.
The WPT Seminole @HardRockHolly Poker Showdown FINAL TABLE is LIVE NOW 🚨🏆
1st - $656,200, including a WPT World Championship seat 🥇
Tune in to the livestream 👇 xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1qGoNeEPW…
Epic final table in the works here @WPT @shrpo
There are some very familiar faces in the mix, which could make for some especially fun commentary!
16 players return @WPT @HardRockHolly Showdown playing to tomorrow’s televised Final Table including @BigSey93, @FaridJattin, @WILLFAILLA, @FrankFunaro1, @EugeneKatchalov, and Dylan Smith.
@DarryllFish and I in the booth tomorrow:
Follow here:
worldpokertour.com/event/mai…
