Images courtesy of World Poker Tour
Ask a poker fan who they love to watch play poker, and they’ll come up with a thousand different names. The same is true for players they love as a personality. But combine the two, and the numbers dwindle down to very few.
Someone who fulfills both those aspirations is the popular YouTube sensation and Lodge Card Club co-owner Brad Owen. We caught up with the ClubWPT Gold ambassador as he talked about his own poker heroes and what feeling tops them all in cash games.
The Smiling Assassin
For many years, Brad Owen has dominated the crowded YouTube space for live cash game content, walking his 786,000 subscribers through exciting sessions at the live felt where he frequently gambles at high stakes.
Explaining hands, capturing the highs and lows of the lifestyle, Brad brings his action to life with a love of poker that is evident from the first moments of each video. Brad admits that his passion for the game is what drives his success.
I’m a competitive person by nature. The desire to do well and win has mostly helped me in my poker career,” he says. “It gives me fuel to put in hours to study or play when others are content to maybe take time off.
When I’m vlogging a cash game session, I want to book wins even more for the viewers, so if I’m stuck, I tend to play longer sessions to get out of the hole.”
Brad’s stubborn determination is such that often his lengthy cash games generate the most exciting hands; he says that it naturally makes the footage more compelling.
On one hand, I know that being results oriented in the short run is bad in a broader sense, and occasionally it’ll get me into trouble, but viewers tend to like that I’m honest about my emotions during rollercoaster sessions.
I imagine that they have similar feelings and can relate to what I’m going through, even if I’m playing high-stakes and they’re used to playing 1/2 or 1/3 NL.
Playing with His Heroes
In recent years, Brad has been at the felt with his fellow WPT ambassador Phil Ivey, a man many players believe is the best pound-for-pound (or dollar-for-dollar) player in poker history.
Ivey is a hero to many, including Brad. He tells us that Phil has always been his favorite player to watch, and it’s been ‘very cool’ to be on the same team and competing against him, whether in a $1/$3 meet-up game (MUG) or playing $100/$200 with Ivey and Doyle Brunson. Their first meeting, however, didn’t go as Brad planned.
We were introduced through a mutual friend. I asked Ivey if he’d be willing to participate in some stupid skit I planned in which he’d say, ‘There’s no right way to play Jiggities.’ After I pitched the idea to him, he said, ‘Jiggities?… What’s that? Is that some kind of racist sh*t?’ I was mortified that I might’ve just offended my poker idol within the first few seconds of meeting him.
I immediately got defensive and said, ‘No, no, no…’ Phil saw me turn bright red with embarrassment, then a big smile came over his face as he said, ‘I’m just f*cking with you’. I was able to take a breath again after that, and I thought it was pretty funny. He got me good.
Hosting MUGs in Las Vegas has been something that has grown Brad’s personal brand immensely, but it’s clear from the live poker meet-ups that Brad’s enjoyment of them is front and center. We asked the Lodge Card Club co-owner to name his dream six ‘MUG’ players for a Meet-Up Game from the Poker Gods. His first opponent is a quick pick.
Firstly, Viktor Hovland, the [Norwegian] golf pro. He’s a young stud whom I met years ago through Scott Blumstein. Hovland told Scott that he watches the vlogs and enjoys playing poker.
Scott and I went to watch him play a PGA event in Las Vegas. From there, we kept in touch. He’s been so fun to watch and root for, and he’s an incredibly nice guy. We’ve never had a chance to play any poker together, though.”
Adding in Shane Gillis – ‘I think he’d be funny to interact with at the poker table’ – Brad wants to reserve a seat for one of his fellow YouTube broadcasters and a hilarious comic.
I saw Theo Von play poker in a YouTube video a few years ago with a handful of other comedians. I’ve seen him perform standup in Las Vegas and Austin within the last year and a half. I also randomly saw him perform at an open mic in 2012, in Los Angeles, before he was well known for comedy, but I recognized him from MTV’s Road Rules.
The 1998 poker movie Rounders had a ‘huge impact’ on Brad’s life, and he considers Matt Damon an absolute lock for another seat.
I enjoy nearly everything else I’ve seen him in, and I know he plays a little poker! Brad smiles. Another Rounders fan, Daniel Negreanu, is an easy choice, too.
Out of poker’s ‘Mount Rushmore’, he’s the player I’ve competed against the least, but he’s always been very nice to me off the felt, says Brad. He’s the type of ambassador for poker that I aspire to be.
As for his final pick, it’s back to Phil Ivey, Brad’s ultimate poker hero.
He’s the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) and has so many interesting gambling stories. Whenever I’m around him, I ask him about a tenth of the questions I wish I could because I don’t want to annoy him too much, but he’s a very enigmatic guy. Lately when I’ve seen him, he asks me if I’ve gotten into playing golf yet, presumably so he can take all my money on the course.
This was my favorite poker session I’ve ever played. It was @TexDolly‘s last televised game, me, @phil_hellmuth, and @philivey. The kind of lineup I never would’ve dreamt I’d be in when I first started playing poker. https://t.co/JhXLn8dPE9
— Brad Owen (@TheBradOwen) November 30, 2024
Fatherhood and Poker
As is the case with generations of poker players, fatherhood has changed the cash game crusher, as he balances life as ‘Dad’ with that of ‘Brad’. He says he loves fatherhood and that it keeps things in perspective whenever he returns home to his wife and son, who is 17 months old.
He doesn’t care at all about how my poker sessions go! I can lose $40,000 in a session, but I’ll walk in the door and he’ll have a big smile when he sees me. It instantly brightens my day. It might still sting that I lost a lot of money, but I quickly realize there are more important things in life than my poker results.
If I’m in the middle of getting my ass kicked, I sometimes look through my phone at pictures or videos of him to put me in a better mindset, which helps me play better.
Brad finds it hard to answer when we ask if he has advice for other poker-playing parents who might be struggling to balance life as a Mom or Dad with that of the at-felt poker crusher they aspire to be. He does, however, admit to finding it just as difficult to adjust in the early days.
I have two stepdaughters who are now 14 and 12; it’s been quite tough for me to find a balance between my personal and professional life, Brad reveals. I used to be on a better schedule for poker. Now I’m on a better schedule for being a good family man.
I have to get up earlier, make sure I spend time with my son and my girls, make sure they get to and from school and all of their practices for the three separate soccer teams that the girls are each on.
The juggling act of family life and poker hours which can be very unsociable is a tightrope act Brad works hard at treading safely.
I wish I had more hours in the day to play, make content, and do things with my family. It’s tough to juggle everything and not feel like I’m falling short in one or all of those aspects of my life.
Born and Raised
Now living in Las Vegas, Brad grew up in California, before moving to the just 13 years ago. He still has very fond memories of The Golden State and has used his experience there to profit in the gambling capital of the world.
There are lots of great card rooms and casinos up and down the state in California. I’ve enjoyed living in Las Vegas since 2012 because there are so many options for cash games and tournaments at world class casinos.
There are amazing restaurants on and off the strip, no state income tax, and it’s often sunny with blue skies. For poker players who can deal with the summer heat and temper their vices, Las Vegas is pretty unbeatable.
Over the summer, Brad has played and cashed in many mixed games at the World Series of Poker. He’s a passionate player of many game variants these days and over the past nine months, has learned a lot about different games.
I’ve dedicated myself to learning from as many top players as I can in order to catch up to speed and compete in the toughest and largest buy-in tournaments.
I fired in a $600 H.O.R.S.E. event last December to see how much I enjoyed it, then two weeks later I won my third ever H.O.R.S.E. event for over $60,000, with four bracelet winners at the final table. I was hooked after that.
Brad had ‘a blast’ playing the $5k-entry Poker Players Championship and a handful of other $10,000-entry events at the 56th annual WSOP.
It’s nice to break up the monotony of just playing No Limit Hold’em tournaments every single day, but financially I got torched! I joke that winning the H.O.R.S.E. event is going to cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Going Deep in the Main
This year, Brad finished 373rd from 9,735 entries in the WSOP Main Event, cashing for $40,000. It was what Brad calls a ‘very special’ experience, so we asked him if the World Championship is more and more rewarding to cash game players in recent years.
Coming into this year, I was 0 for 7 in the Main, Brad says. My first time playing it was in 2010. I won a live $100 satellite as a 22-year-old fresh out of college. I didn’t play it again until 2017 when I made it late into Day 3 but busted about 150 or so from the money.
I didn’t make another Day 3 in several attempts after that. I started getting the sense that I was never going to cash in it.
That all changed this year, as Brad finally ticked one of the poker ‘bucket list’ by running so deep.
It was nice to get the monkey off my back. It was a dream come true to play on the Main Stage during Day 5; I grew up watching the WSOP Main Event on ESPN while playing for a dollar or two around the kitchen table with my friends and family. I told myself back then as a teenager that someday I’d make it to that stage, and I finally did.
The Comeback Kid
If Brad’s story strikes you as one from a redemption arc, then that is appropriate in a way you might not know. One of his most viral posts from last year highlighted a massive downswing that he experienced before battling back over several months to return to profit.
The fact that it came at the club he now co-owns with Doug Polk and Andrew Neeme was not lost on him.
I lost over $300,000 playing high stakes cash games at the Lodge over the course of three sessions. I had my biggest losses I’ve ever had all in a row – at my own card club! It was devastating.
The trio had just launched their brand-new streaming studio that they had spent over $500,000 on, and Brad was looking forward to creating good memories right away, then the opposite happened.
I thought it might take me years to recover, but I was motivated to win,” he says. “I ended up final tabling a $5,000 WPT Championship event, getting fourth for $125,000. Then, in December of that year, I had two more six-figure scores.
I turned it around in cash games as well, to ultimately have the best year I’d ever had at the time. Getting out of the hole so quickly is one of the accomplishments I’m most proud of.
With so many achievements in his rear-view mirror, anyone could forgive Brad Owen for stopping a moment to take in the sights. There’s no hint of that though. After years in the game, the only thing he knows is how to look forward.
With so much on the horizon, who can blame him?
