Alright everyone, I usually give you all three podcast to listen to, but since one of the shows has a run time of four plus hours we will only be bringing you two shows. This week we are bringing you some of the newest information from the Ultimate Bet scandal.

Rabbit Hunt:

Our friends over at the Rabbit Hunt started off this weeks show with some news but the part we are all interested in starts at the 16:00 mark. The guys got mookman5, who is a wealth of information when it comes to the Ultimate Bet scandal, to come on the show and discuss the latest Travis Makar bomb that was dropped the week before. They discuss reasons why Makar would be coming out at this point and speculate on this lawsuit that he made mention to throughout the interview. Take a listen to the show on either the Cardrunners site or download it directly from iTunes to listen to this interview.

DonkDown Radio:

I usually do not repeat shows in back to back weeks, but these guys are at the center of the poker podcast world this week and have came back from last weeks bombshell of a show with a followup show that has a run time of over four hours. Do not be worried though, we will tell you where to skip ahead to so that you can save some time.

• 22:30 – Bryan Micon starts to discuss his meeting with Travis Makar, where he discusses some of the documents that he saw during the meeting.
• 45:10 – Brad Booth joins the show to discuss being cheated by the super-user accounts.
• 1:20:00 – Micon starts to break down the Addressing a Few Rumors on the UB Blog.
• 1:41:00 – Haley Hintze joins the show to discuss who may have actually made the payments to Zoltan “Brainwashdodo” Rozsa.
• 2:35:35 – Travis Makar calls into the show to ask Booth some questions, the first of which is how does he know that Russ Hamilton actually cheated him.
• 2:48:00 – Booth ask Makar what it is that he is truly looking for from bringing this information public.
• 3:19:36 – Dustin Woolf joins the show to discuss how he was cheated.

You can listen to the show at the DonkDown site or subscribe and download it via iTunes.

Finally, keep an eye out for a new episode of The Micros tonight, as it was posted on their Facebook earlier today that a new episode should be up tonight at around 9PM PT or 12AM ET.

Ante Up Poker Magazine Podcast:

After returning from their trip to Jacksonville for the Chad Brown NLHE Championship host Christopher Cosenza & Scott Long come on to discuss a horribly played limit hold’em hand. Once they recap the hand they move on to discuss the pro heavy field that was found in the Chad Brown tournament. If you are looking for a show that contains some poker news along with some strategy talk then this might be a good choice for you. Check out the show on the Ante Up site or download it directly from iTunes.

CardRunners – Pro Chat:

Ever wondered how the top players make the transition to adding a new game into their skill base? This weeks Pro Chat guest is Brian Townsend who discusses his thought process when learning and mastering a brand new game. This podcast is a good one to have in your playlist if only to gain an insight into how some of the top players think. You can either listen to the show on the CardRunners site or download it from iTunes.

Perspectives Weekly:

Although this is not technically a podcast it is a part of my weekly, or whenever a new show gets published, must listen to list. This week host J. Todd catches up with Joe Brennan, iMEGA Chairman, to discuss the current intrastate gaming regulations that various states are proposing. Although this is a short show, that at times has other shenanigans that could be removed and replaced with more content I recommend subscribing via YouTube so that you are able to keep up to date with the episodes. You can watch this weeks show on the APCW site or just watch it below.

Episode 34
Rabbit Hunt is back and its an all-news podcast this week. Spartanfox and Tyresias discuss Russ Hamilton’s blowup in Florida, the $100k Challenge at the Aussie Million, Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollack’s new poker tour, and more!
[audio:http://cardrunner.securehttp.internapcdn.net/secure_cardrunner_vitalstream_com/rabbithunt012411.mp3?token=SPGpmqK206vQwyOH]

CardRunners, as you know, recently celebrated their 5th birthday … quite a milestone when you consider that means Jungleman couldn’t even drive yet when they first came into being.

As a reminder of where you can go for the best ROI on your gifted holiday monies, here’s a peek at poker in the old days, with CR honcho Taylor Caby showing how the poker skills they teach you at CardRunners played out in a different era:

And if you’re still too cheap/broke to pony up real bucks for education, they still have financial aid available allowing you to earn CardRunners credits through Truly Free Poker Training … TFPT is for current CardRunners members as well as those newbies who have yet to take seriously their resolution to be a winning poker player.

DonkDown Radio:

This is the first time that I have actually listened to this show, due to me not being a fan of Podcast that extend past the 2 hour mark. After just listening to this episode it easily moves into the must listen weekly list. This week Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke comes in and the discussion goes from poker to Magic the Gathering. Kristy Arnett comes on next to discuss her recent mini-FTOPs win and is put on the spot with this weeks Dirty Half Dozen where things go from R rated to XXX rated. Check out the latest episode at the DonkDown site or subscribe and download it via iTunes.

Final Table Poker Radio:

The guys from St. Louis come back this week to further discuss the Reid bill with John Pappas of the PPA. John sounded a lot less hopeful that the bill will be passed before years end and gives some thoughts on where things go from here. The discussion does move off the Reid bill this week and goes into antes in cash games and the Bellagio heist. If you want to listen to the entire show or catch up on previous show you can either visit The Final Table site or check it out on iTunes.

3 Gentlemen:

Brian Hastings joins the 3 Gentlemen crew this week to discuss the love between him and Isildur. The guys also discuss their sports betting losses over the past week. These guys really like to talk their sports so if that is something that you really would like to listen to then check them out on Cardrunners or subscribe on iTunes.

Check it out … a new show from Jay Rosenkrantz and John Wray, aka KRANTZ of 2 Months 2 Million “fame” and JimmyLegs, CardRunners’ chief filmmaker. Their web-video series promises “high stakes, low comedy” … and as seen in the pilot episode here, it may be the most accurate (and funny) look at the degenerate side of online poker yet.

Seriously, LOLed for real multiple times. And more than 90,000 views after being up for just a couple weeks? Not even Durrrr and Jungleman draw those kinda numbers right out the gate. Might this be the show about poker (online poker specifically) that transcends Norman Chad and 2+2?

If so, you may wanna (finally!) start improving your game with poker training videos from CardRunners.

CR is a finalist for “favorite poker resource” in the 2010 Bluff Readers Choice Awards, too. Vote here!

Check it out, our good sponsored friends at CardRunners like to get a little creative sometimes — making poker training videos that hardly show cards. This one will be extra entertaining for those of you who recognize the name Ernest Thayer.

More nice work from JimmyLegs, aka John Wray.

Have a look at some of CR’s premier filmmaker’s efforts to enjoy himself while making videos generally of online poker screens.

That, of course, is all the more reason for you to sign up and give the training videos at CardRunners a try.

It’s easy to see why Nikachu won CardRunners’ Video Challenge. Seriously, not bullshitting … call me under-educated in the new math of online poker, but this may be the best poker schooling vid I’ve seen. It’s certainly different, as a matter of both style and substance, and this player I was pretty sure was something out of Pokemon got me thinking about poker in new ways … yet ways that seem to make simple sense. (We’ll see how it all applies next time I sit down.)

Sometimes funny, too!

Am I right? Don’t he rabbits make it so much easier?!?And who knew it could be so easy to fold such monsters early in a hand. You can get more from Nikachu’s poker training at CardRunners for free via Truly Free Poker Training, which takes your standard online play to accumulate access to CR’s library of more than 2,000 training videos by the only players who consistently seem to be winning these days.

Our extra-good friends at CardRunners had quite the score this November Nine … patching up a full third of the field in play — chip-positions 4, 5, and 6, fwiw. The top online poker training site stepped in to fill the patch void left by Full Tilt’s November Nine over-dominance banking some big branding time on last night’s ESPN final-table broadcast.

Matt Jarvis, Fillipo Candio, and John Racener were CR’s table reps — though Racener did switch to Full Tilt-branded gear for heads-up play. No surprise that his original primary patch sponsor would want back in as rules permitted, but it is somewhat unusual (perhaps even unprecedented?) to see ESPN production crews relent to online poker patch-interests over matters of television continuity in a single episode.

The original CardRunners Three

photo: Rob Gracie / Greasie Wheels

But sure enough, with Racener surviving to be the last CardRunner standing, something looked different to TV viewers once they got down to heads-up. Maybe just big money on the table?

Also interesting to note: Full Tilt has produced and/or patched up only one WSOP main event champion — Jerry Yang.

Just a matter of variance?

There’s a reason we media folk love us some Nolan Dalla … not only does he understand what’s really at stake every step of the poker way, but also he knows how to bring out the best in the game … and here at the Penn & Teller Theater, introducing tonight’s heads-up match, he seems to recognize, hey, I’m on a stage, we’ve got flashing lights, and there’s a poker-loving hairy manbeast behind me — might as well have some fun!

One difference, however … Racener has the Sam Chauhan rubber band, while Duhamel … is from Canada, eh?

Looks like they’ve taken care of the patch problem over at full tilt. Ty Stewart was on the verge of blowing up at the media in last week’s conference call when he was bombarded by questions, but now it seems that the people at FTP have found a good workaround:

Full Tilt Patches

• Michael Mizrachi
• John Dolan
• Joseph Cheong

Cardrunners Patches

• Matt Jarvis
• John Racener
• Filippo Candio

Poker After Dark Patches(!)

• Soi Nguyen

That last one I did not expect. Poker After Dark is so obviously connected with Full Tilt its nauseating, and as for Cardrunners, well, its a lot more separate than PAD, but, its also close enough. Harrah’s hasn’t done anything yet, but the cards having gone in the air just yet.

Episode 22
SpartanFox is back in the host seat with Tyresias to talk about the first three days of WPT-Festa al Lago, Full Tilt’s mobile Rush Poker app, Deliverance Poker unsuing Full Tilt, and Scott Montgomery’s getting robbed at Bellagio … on this week’s edition of the Rabbit Hunt.
[audio:http://cardrunner.securehttp.internapcdn.net/secure_cardrunner_vitalstream_com/rabbithunt101810.mp3?utm_source=pokerati&utm_campaign=pokerati?token=Y9dcQFJ2fxezVKCA]

CardRunners hired Nicolak because their other pros needed someone who could buy beer.

Finally … a new pro at CardRunners I can relate to. The kids at CR are smart and all — and really do offer probably the very best poker training available on the internet — but as I’m sure many of you who’ve signed up for TrulyFreePokerTraining have discovered, they also can be a reminder of the life hard-working poker players over 32 will never live no matter how many MTTs you take down.

Something about John Kim, aka Nicolak, the newest CardRunners instructor, connects with the aggressively balding. Not sure if it’s because he can remember a day when Atari was our internet, or because his scores have come in tournaments that seem a little more realistic to a lower-stakes player. Check out his Hendon Mob stats. He also recently began cohosting Cash Plays on PokerRoad, with Jeremiah Smith, a skill-based show I don’t listen to enough.

I’ve played with Nicolak once, at Detox, and he certainly doesn’t fit the mold of your typical high-stakes online aggro-baller. In fact, he seems way too mentally fit and life-steady to be a truly successful poker pro. But he must be doing something right …

Check out his personal blog, where he writes about balancing the game as a career while supporting a loving family and fantasy football team. He’s been publicly chasing a $1million bankroll goal all year, and is only about a quarter of the way there so far. You can just see his pursuits are a more familiar grind to many, whereas I’m not so sure they are yet for Jungleman.

Read his introduction to CardRunners here. And then get on over to TFPT for some free poker training, as Nicolak will soon have videos showing the keys to his slightly smoother jazz.

Today’s CardRunner’s instruction comes from utility coach PoorUser, who comes to high-level poker with an advanced degree in Starcraft, a military science fiction strategy video game. Clearly CR is assembling an ever-expansive crew of instructors comprised of the coolest party animals on campus.

Kinda interesting here to watch his heads-up thinking giving lessons while playing ZeeJustin:

Remember, you can geek out for profit by studying with CardRunners poker trainers for free via TrulyFreePokerTraining.com.

Albini: Rock & Roll razz teacher.

That’s probably a stretch, referring to any Razz player as Jungleman … but hey, as of this moment he’s the most skilled and accomplished Razz player I’ve ever met studied on a training video. Or actually, maybe his sidekick, Brandon Shack (aka Oscillator) is the better player. It’s hard to say, but they seem to have rather different philosophies on playing the game that most of us got to know from a single Final Table hand in 2004 — you know, the one where Howard Lederer and TJ Cloutier taught us that Razz could indeed be a painful game?

(That hand, of course — they had the same low until the river — led me to my first and only bracelet, in Razz, in the 2005 $1,500 event on the PlayStation. I should clearly be in the TOC!)

Anyhow, that’s why I liked this video. And though I still have no plans to ever add Razz to any 1/2 NLH/PLO game I’m pimping, getting in the middle of an intense poker convo about the nuances of Razz does leave me feeling a bit better prepared should I ever end up in the game Vegas-local aggro-nit Rex really wants to host – NLH/PLO/Razz:

Albini, btw, is a rather interesting dude — a guy who comes to poker from the music biz. He worked as a producer on albums by Nirvana, Bush, the Pixies, Flogging Molly, the Jesus Lizard (Chris Ferguson, lol?), Helmet, Cheap Trick, and Robert Plant. Apparently he became quite the badass legend amongst producers in the underground-alt scene. Neato.

Reminds me that I’m glad I’ve signed up to get this type of specialist poker training for free from CardRunners with their Truly Free Poker Training.