The Ultimate Cooler: Mariano Flops a Straight Flush on the HCL
Poker vlogs have taken the world of poker by storm and completely changed the way content is created and consumed within the industry.
Just a few years ago, the idea of a poker vlog didn’t even exist. Today, dozens of popular vloggers regularly post about their journey, while hundreds of others are trying their best to do the same.
The Best Poker Vlogs in 2024
If you go to YouTube today and start looking up poker vlogs or poker streams, you will run into dozens, if not hundreds, of channels trying to do a very similar thing.
However, not all poker vlogs are high-quality, and despite their best attempts, quite a few vloggers fail at catching the full attention of the viewers with their content.
Yet, a few players have managed to dominate the space and create content so good and so viral that hundreds of thousands of people follow their journeys week in and week out.
The following poker vlogs are the ones you should definitely follow if you want to stay up to date with what’s happening in the poker scene and keep track of the progress of some of the best live poker players in the world.
#1. Mariano Grandoli
A young poker player of Argentinian descent, Mariano Grandoli started his poker Vlog in 2019 after losing his job as a pizza delivery boy.
Having played some poker before, he decided to try and make a career out of live poker and quickly realized that he could try to record his journey and create a poker vlog similar to his poker idols like Andrew Neeme and Brad Owen.
Starting at $1/3 No Limit Hold’em just several years ago, Mariano was able to climb the ranks and play in some of the biggest poker games in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and beyond.
A regular on poker streams like Hustler Casino Live, Mariano is one of the biggest winners in recorded poker cash games and one of the most popular poker vloggers these days.
With over 165,000 followers and counting, his channel may not be the biggest of all the poker vloggers, but it is definitely one of the best ones.
Each episode of Mariano’s poker vlog is a masterpiece, as he takes the time to create a storyline for each and guide us through the events with amazing narration and a calm tone.
#2. Ethan “Rampage” Yau
Another popular poker vlogger who started his career around 2018 is Ethan Yau, popularly known as “Rampage.”
Much like Mariano, Ethan started his poker career playing low-stakes poker games and trying to win at poker while having very little technical knowledge of the game.
Fortunately enough, the low-stakes games he played in were soft enough to beat, and Rampage was able to quickly ascend the ranks.
What’s even more, Rampage wanted to become a YouTuber, and his poker voyage was not the first attempt at doing so, but it was the most successful one.
Over time, Ethan became known to the general poker public, and his vlog exploded to the point where he has over 300,000 followers on his YouTube channel today.
Rampage’s vlogs follow him as he plays some of the biggest cash games and tournaments in venues across America, Europe, Asia, and beyond.
Known for often running big bluffs and sometimes “punting” entire stacks, Rampage is extremely fun to watch, and his poker vlogs are among the highest-quality ones available.
If you start following Ethan, you will get an insight not only into his poker career, but also the mental ups and downs that high-stakes poker players go through on their journey to greatness.
#3. Brad Owen
One of the owners of “The Lodge” card club in Austin, Texas, and the owner of the biggest poker YouTube vlog, Brad Owen, is a true legend in the online poker community.
Brad started his vlog a couple of years before the likes of Rampage and Mariano and was one of the pioneers of the poker vlogging scene back in 2017.
Just like many of his peers, Brad started at the low stakes and recorded his entire journey to the world of high-stakes poker.
That journey included many ups and downs, but Brad has always kept honest about them all and showed us the entire path he took to where he is today.
Now a part of the high-stakes poker community and a regular on the “Poker at the Lodge” live stream, Brad Owen is known throughout the poker community as one of the nicest guys in the game.
His vlogs offer a strong strategic element, as he guides us through his thought process in all the hands he plays, along with plenty of solid humor and high-quality production.
Brad’s popularity is clearly displayed in his massive YouTube following, and we highly recommend you join the ranks and give Brad’s vlog a follow.
#4. Andrew Neeme
If you are a fan of the likes of Brad Owen or Mariano, you should probably send Andrew Neeme a thank you letter, as he was one of the people who jump-started the entire poker vlogging industry.
Brad’s first poker vlogs date back to 2016, and they saw him playing the lowest stakes poker games available on the Las Vegas Strip.
Like most other poker vloggers, Andrew had decent success along the way, moved up the stakes, and managed to create a massive YouTube channel in the process.
Today, Andrew has close to 200,000 followers on YouTube and is one of the most popular personalities in the game.
His partnership with Brad Owen and Doug Polk led to Andrew becoming a part-owner of The Lodge, also making him a regular on “Poker at the Lodge,” similar to Owen.
Andrew’s vlogs are extremely entertaining to watch and full of quality strategic input, making it one of the vlogs you want to follow if getting better at poker is your goal.
#5. Hungry Horse Poker
Starting in 2023, Hungry Horse Poker is not the most popular poker vlog, but it may just be the best poker vlog that focuses on low-stakes poker strategy out there.
If your goal is to learn how to play live poker, spin up a bankroll, and beat low-stakes live games, following Hungry Horse Poker is an absolute must.
Run by poker professional Marc Goone, Hungry Horse Poker is a channel dedicated to teaching people how to play poker and demonstrating how profitable low-stakes poker games can be.
In a very short time, Goone has gathered tens of thousands of followers, and his popularity in poker circles continues to grow by the day.
Marc might just be one of the best exploitative poker players in the world, and his incredible performance in the low-stakes games demonstrates that the poker dream is certainly not dead.
If you have been told that low-stakes poker can’t be beaten because the rake is too high, that you can’t win more than a few bb/hour, or that the players are too good, Goone is here to prove you wrong.
Give Hungry Horse Poker a follow, watch a few of the videos, and you may just rekindle your desire to go back to the basics and beat poker from the ground up.
#6. Corey Eyring
Quitting a well-paying job to pursue a career in poker is the original poker dream, and one kid decided to do it in 2022 when he left his 100k-a-year job to play poker.
His name is Corey Eyring! His journey so far has been an emotional roller-coaster, and he’s had more ups and downs than the stock market.
Yet, Corey never gave up on his dream and continues to pursue it even while in debt and battling to stay afloat.
Eyring’s poker journey has been less smooth than many of his fellow poker vloggers, and he continues to build up a career as both a poker player and vlogger today.
With so many successful poker vloggers out there, following an up-and-comer can be extremely fun as we wait to see whether he makes it and evolves into a poker champion or quits poker and goes back to a day job.
If you want to follow such a journey, give Corey Eyring a follow and enjoy seeing a new episode of his highly entertaining poker vlog every couple of weeks or so.
A New Era of Poker Content
Poker content has evolved greatly over the years. The first TV footage of poker events comes from early WSOP tournaments, which were recorded and shown in a documentary style.
During the days of the Poker Boom, we saw shows like High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark dominate the space and air on TV stations, attracting thousands of new players to the game.
As the years went by, online poker operators took charge of creating poker content before PokerGO opened its door and became a hub for the vast majority of poker content.
While these costly productions created some amazing content over the years, some of the best stuff we have seen in the poker space has been coming from players themselves in recent years.
The first poker vlogs came from the likes of Andrew Neeme and other players who pioneered a brand-new type of poker content.
In the hopes their poker journey would garner some interest, they started putting themselves out there and surprisingly received a warm welcome from the poker community.
Today, poker vlogs, in addition to live poker streams, are the most watched variety of poker content, with classic poker shows attracting less attention among modern poker fans.