Our friends on the Rabbit Hunt podcast jump right into the middle of the Joe Sebok drama this week. The guys break down and criticize both sides of the drama, breaking down what both sides of did wrong. They also discuss why Paul Leggett will probably never agree to come to 2+2 to answer questions from the forum readers and how much work the moderators have had to do over the past few days. Take a listen to the show on either the Cardrunners site or download it directly from iTunes to listen to this interview.
The Bernard Lee Poker Show:
Making its first appearance in the roundup The Bernard Lee Poker Show welcomes mindset coach Sam Chauhan to their show. Chauhan speaks about being in the positive mindset in order to be successful. He also discusses about how he got started in the poker community with a short discussion that he had with Antonio Esfandiari in a restroom at the Rio. To close out the show the two discuss some of the tools that Chauhan uses with his students to keep them in the right mindset. If you would like to listen to this show you can either download it from Bernard’s site, listen to it directly on on Rounders Radio, or through iTunes.
I Am Nanonoko – Team Pokerstars Online Documentary:
OK, this is not a podcast but it was brought to our attention this week from our good friend Dr. Pauly from Tao of Poker. If you have ever wondered what it is like to be in the head of a Supernova Elite you definitely should check out this short documentary that was done on Randy “Nononoko” Lew. Also check out the brief blog that gives an introduction to the film.
One thing that is very different here compared to other tournaments seen around Vegas has been the LACK of patched up players in the field. Surely it’s gotta be a matter of politeness from Full Tilt and Stars, right — not wanting to crash this online+live poker newcomer’s coming out party? Saw Doyle Brunson with a Doyle’s Room patch yesterday … but hey, he’s Doyle … and @Pokerati, we have no couth, obv.
So big-good luck to Team Pokerati’s lone representative in the inaugural Zynga Pokercon, Stacey Nutini, aka Stacey Lynn, aka @LasVegasPokers. She just took her seat as alternate #23.
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!
So that’s the fight …
Racener vs. Duhamel
John vs. Jon
Full Tilt vs. PokerStars
Florida vs. Canada
RCNR T-shirts vs. Montreal Sweaters
30.7 million vs. 189 million
(blinds at 600k/1.2m)
#
One difference, however … Racener has the Sam Chauhan rubber band, while Duhamel … is from Canada, eh?
As much as I’ve noted Team Pokerati’s struggles on the felt this summer, it’s not like our players don’t know their way to the WSOP payout window. Here’s a rundown of the team’s representative real-money scores so far:
(Click below for the Team Chauhan comparative results.)
Tom to La, after Team Pokerati’s first and only FT of 2010: “Congrats, you really played great. If I don’t bink a tourney soon, think you might be able to float me some scratch?”
A few years ago, Mike Matusow was drinking pink Vitamin Water for the critical focus he needed during the WSOP. The next year it was just a matter of keeping up with his meds and occasionally mumbling about happy thoughts. Then, somewhere in there, he threw away his laptop and asked friends to forcibly prevent him from playing online.
Heading in to the 2010 World Series, we’ve learned from reliable sources, Matusow has retained the services of Sam Chauhan to give him a mental edge. Two other well-known TV pros also apparently signed up to become Sammy’s mindset disciples, but based on my own eavesdroppings, they want to keep the relationship private … so I’ll respect that (for now).
But maybe his luck is running out? He dad have a few clients on Team USA in this week’s WTP, including Matusow and team captain Phil Hellmuth, and yet the Americans had no one make the final table.
The latest Poker Beat was a bit of a clusterfucky episode for us on the backend — computer breakdowns and internet snafus during a week where the only meaty topic we had for a full segment was David Williams’ stepping up to a new level of poker bad-assness by winning the WPT World Championship … and even that devolved into a Gary/Dan vs BJ spat about whether or not the mind coaching of Sam Chauhan has any tournament value or is just an Extenze-like sales success story for his brand of hypnotic snake oil.
But before we even get to that, we break down all sorts of poker buggerings … Daniel Tzvetkoff denied bail, poker recognized as a mind sport, Adam Junglen’s prosthetic leg, Cole South bowing out of CardRunners, PokerStars buying up abandoned poker blogs, Harrah’s selling the Rio, a new right-wing poker+politics show, and a study saying online gambling leads to jobs.
It was one of those episodes where so much was going wrong before we even got started that the crew just had to rely on shooting the shit about what we may or may not know … all while Huff attempted to keep the ship from running aground. I think it worked!
It really is getting almost eerie the success “mindset” guru Sam Chauhan’s clients are finding at the poker table … not to mention in the MMA octagons. If you haven’t noticed, Chauhan is the non-player who has been showing up all over various poker places of late. He’s currently the subject of the cover story in the April issue of Bluff Magazine (by Lance Bradley), which tells how a guy who hardly knows the difference between suited connectors and a busted flush draw has helped turn around results for Antonio Esfandiari, Paul Wasicka, Gavin Smith, and the ever-tiltable Phil Hellmuth.
But since that story went to press, Chauhan has put up even more impressive results — most recently standing by the side of newly crowned WPT World Champion David Williams. In fact, three of the Top 16 finishers were Chauhan clients, two of whom made it to the final table. (Hellmuth went out on the TV bubble.) Away from poker, he gets credit (at least a small percentage, based on coaching deals we’ve learned about) for helping rising MMA star Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal take the Strikeforce light heavyweight title from Gegard Mousasi, who was a 3-to-1 favorite in the match.
That all kinda blows my theory that the key to Williams’ re-found success had everything to do with his new hair. Check out the video snippet below of a bushy-fro’d Williams stepping outside the Fontana room for some mantra and affirmation exercises before taking his seat at the final table:
Wow, that’s all there is to it? Didn’t realize winning at anything, let alone life, was so easy. Seems like if you could turn that into an iPhone app Sammy might really be able to help people. Chauhan, however, is not without his haters (just ask Google). But poker players know you can only get super-lucky so many times.
Vegas fave Annie LePage and her lapddog playing poker at the Jen Harman SPCA fundraiser. Bijou seems to like their hand or is just hoping for a walk in the big blind.
There was a big charity event Tuesday night at the Venetian … part of their Deep Stacks II series … Jennifer Harman’s Charity Poker Tournament benefitting the Nevada SPCA. This has become one of the bigger Springtime celeb draws in poker, and is always a memorable shindig because of the presence of cute animals. You shoulda seen the look on the dealer’s face when Bijou (pictured here) jumped up and scampered around the table. I think half the players nearby were all cued up with jokes of “reraise!” and “floor!” had the pup, um, pushed a potty stack across the betting line.
Anyhow, I don’t know the numbers yet …I think it was actually smaller than in previous years, with 140something entries 30 minutes before late registration closed. But it really was a lot of fun … and the NSPCA seemed thrilled about the money the event was still raising, not to mention the number of rescued pets being adopted.
Here’s the latest episode — a good one with Phil Hellmuth in studio talking a little EPT-Berlin robbery, significance of the NBC Heads-up, and his recent non-collapse collapse at Bay 101.
They also talk with his “mindset coach” Sam Chauhan … and the process of keeping players focussed.
It doesn’t get weird until Andrew Feldman and Bernard Lee start to talk about Hellmuth shirtless.
Many Dallas Fort Worth poker players can clearly remember when Winstar didn’t give two hoots about Poker. At that same time, the then soon-to-be ‘big games’ were popping up all over North Texas. Many of those have since come and gone as players come to prefer driving an hour north over getting shot to death. But this alone wasn’t going to do the heavy lifting required to further increase the infamous Texas vs. Oklahoma license plate ratio of the Winstar parking lot. It would take a few years, an upstart tournament series and TV show, and finally one damn nice poker room upgrade. It appears now that the players are taking Winstar as a serious poker venue, so are promoters. Most recently, the WSOP.
Last weekend, I was given the opportunity to join a few dozen amateur players for the most recent installment of the WSOP Poker Academy. This event’s focus was near and dear to my heart; Tournament Strategy. Although I get more than my own fair share of top-notch professional tournament wisdom via poker and biz bud, Tom Schneider, I was very much looking forward to the ever present contrast that would be offered by different pros, including Bernard Lee, Michael Gracz, Greg Raymer, and friends. I would not be disappointed.
Lectures, lab sessions, and lunch are all part of an academic effort to plug your leaks.
Much to say about the WSOP Academy I attended last weekend at Caesar’s … about things I learned, how I performed, and, frankly, what kinda people are shelling out close to $2,000 for anything these days. For some of the 50-or-so poker players in attendance it was just a matter of a buy-in or two for the level they play at. And for others, it was more than half their annual poker budget in a way that doesn’t even account for flights to Las Vegas from Australia or Buffalo.
Prof. Seif: “He may think it’s the right move, but Dan stands to lose a stack of 20-dollar bills this big if he keeps playing that way.”
All in all it was a great class taught by Mark Seif, Mark Gregorich, Alex Outhred, and Michael Gracz — very engaging, informative, and often irreverent — didn’t feel like Saturday/Sunday detention at all. I lost pretty big in the one session of $1/$2 NL I’ve played since WSOP-Acad graduation … I guess they shoulda reminded us to take a nap after class, or they can only do so much with a guy who insists on misplaying KQ generally 8 out of 10 times. (Ah, the painful, humiliating schoolchild memories …) If I could just misplay the hand 4 out of 10 times, that would be some serious positive EV, saving me the theoretical cost of tuition in just a few orbits!
BTW, the next WSOP Academy is at WinStar, February 21-22 — a poker room near and dear to so many Texas player and longtime Pokeratizens. Outhred and Gracz will be part of the Thackerville faculty, along with Greg Raymer and Master Mindset (?) coach Sam Chauhan.
Click here for more info … and really, you should totally think about signing up. Your Pokerati-friendly friends will feed you and everything.
Making its first appearance in the roundup The Bernard Lee Poker Show welcomes mindset coach Sam Chauhan to their show. Chauhan speaks about being in the positive mindset in order to be successful. He also discusses about how he got started in the poker community with a short discussion that he had with Antonio Esfandiari in a restroom at the Rio. To close out the show the two discuss some of the tools that Chauhan uses with his students to keep them in the right mindset. If you would like to listen to this show you can either download it from Bernard’s site, listen to it directly on on Rounders Radio, or through iTunes.
Many Dallas Fort Worth poker players can clearly remember when Winstar didn’t give two hoots about Poker. At that same time, the then soon-to-be ‘big games’ were popping up all over North Texas. Many of those have since come and gone as players come to prefer driving an hour north over getting 
