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- [00:00]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
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- [00:30]
Eric Morris
Take your seat. The cards are flying high. Shuffle up and deal at the Aces Lie longest running show. Yeah, we've seen it all. From the river to the rail, we answer the call.
- [00:48]
Joe Scales
Hello, A team, and welcome back to another episode of the Antiette Poker podcast, where every hand is an opportunity, every player is a friend, and every episode is a winning experience. I'm your host, Joe Scales, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time here in the intro today because I'll give you a little peek behind the curtain. I'm actually recording this after we already finished Table Talk, but there's a good reason for that. We had a special guest join us around the table today. Eric Morris stopped by the show and a lot of you might remember Eric from his days with Bluff magazine. These days, Eric has teamed up with Mike Leah to create Bluffers Poker, which is where we'll be running some satellites for our Alaskan cruise coming up in August. Honestly, the segment went longer than our normal table talk, but I still feel like we barely scratched the surface of everything we could have talked about. Eric is a great guy, an incredibly smart guy, and I'm really proud to be partnering with him and Mike through Bluffers Poker. So I'm not going to ramble on any longer here. Just keep doing what you're doing, keep listening, keep sharing the show, keep being a part of this amazing A team community. And that's all I've got for now. So let's get on with the show.
- [02:15]
Eric Morris
Welcome to the show. You're on the A team. Joe's got the booth, his mic's on fire.
- [02:31]
Joe Scales
Elle and I are back around the
- [02:33]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
poker table with a special guest. I'm still a little nasally, so forgive me, but. Eric Morris, welcome around the table. We are so, so pumped that you're here.
- [02:44]
Eric Morris
Oh, it's good to be here. And nice to. Nice to kind of be working with you guys, you know, It's a pleasure.
- [02:50]
Joe Scales
Yeah. So a lot of people will know you or remember you from back in the golden era of poker, media and Bluff magazine. So first Tell us a little bit about those boom years when you were with bluff and poker was everywhere. Poker was exploding on tv.
- [03:12]
Eric Morris
That was, that was the wild west of the poker days. I mean, it was so much fun and just, just wild. I mean, you. We used to sell the dream of. And that's, I think that's kind of why we matured into, you know, the leading poker publication back then. But we sold the dream that not everybody is going to play center field for their San Francisco Giants. Obviously Giants fan here, but anyone can be the next poker superstar millionaire. And that's how. And that's what we sold it. And people bought into it and we just, I mean, every day was better than the next. It was, it was just an unbelievable time in poker. We had so much fun.
- [03:50]
Joe Scales
Yeah. Well, what drew you into that side, into the media side, as opposed to just playing poker?
- [03:56]
Eric Morris
Sure. You know, it's funny, I, I had another magazine and before that called Gambling Online Magazine, and it was the first magazine dedicated to online gaming. And how I actually got into it is I'd been publishing magazines for several years, you know, ranging from a custom publication for the Union bank of California for their private and trust clients. And when I was actually doing that one, I got one of those little CD ROMs, if you remember. You should get those, a LLC ROMs. And it was from a company called Worldwide Telesports. And I looked at it, I'm like, you can put this in and then bet on sports. I'm like, what? And this is like 1997, right? So I, I went and put it in and took a look at, downloaded it and, you know, saw the lines and that there was a casino, There was a casino attached to it. I'm like, I'm going to give these guys a call. So I, I called, I called Worldwide Telesports, which is defunct, it's no longer in operation, and talked to a woman, a woman by the name of Jessica Davis, who I'm still friends with to this day, and started asking her questions and said, hey, Jessica, I have this magazine called Calafia and it's a, it's a lifestyle publication for, you know, trust, private and trust clients of Union bank of California. And we do a lot of, you know, travel, travel type articles. And we're about to do something on Las Vegas and want to see if you want to advertise. And she goes, we can advertise in a magazine. Like, well, I don't see why not. Right. It was my magazine. I didn't have. I, you know, I Didn't have anyone controlling what I did. So I'm like, of course. So she bought the inside front cover spread for something like $16,000 back in 1997, right? With a circulation of about 40,000 copies. I'm like, wow, I think I'm onto something. So I'd call VIP Sports and bet on sports and sport this and casino that. And I just filled that magazine with online advertising and I think we booked like $200,000 worth of, worth of ads in there. And that morphed into Gambling Online Magazine. Gambling Online Magazine. I started in California and then sold it to a company here in Atlanta, Georgia, who hired me to basically come run it and run their publishing company and was still doing Gambling Online magazine, but was doing like Women's Health and Fitness, a magazine called Do European Homes and Gardens, Baby Years Pregnancy Magazine, a bunch of different publications along with Gambling Online. And what I noticed with Gambling Online magazine is that circa 2023, the ads started moving away from sports betting to poker. And everybody was. And this is right when the money, right around the money maker kind of boom happened. And I started doing research and the only magazine out there at that time was Card Player. And I, you know, took a look at it and like, this is, we just, we, we kind of made fun of the magazine, right? Like, this is your dad, this is your dad's poker magazine. I mean, it wasn't particularly, it wasn't particularly interesting, you know, if you wanted to learn how to play ace, ace, queen offsuit in third position, you know, great, you know, and they did what they did. They had their loyal following, right? So I mean, nothing against them, but there was nothing out there that celebrated poker was. We used to call it the Maxim, Maxim of the poker world. So we, so I started doing some research and I had a buddy who was working for a gaming company called Real Time Gaming. And I said, let's quit our jobs and start a poker publication. Now both of us were making a lot of money, right? I mean, I mean, back then it was, it was a very nice living. And we quit. We quit those, those big paying positions to start in my basement with two desks and no air conditioning, right?
- [07:33]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
That's wild. That is wild.
- [07:36]
Eric Morris
It was, it was crazy. And I'll tell you this. I remember loaning the company $20,000 to start, right? And that was just to buy desks, computers, and just have some money in the bank. Well, after two weeks, we paid our, we paid ourselves back and started taking a salary because I had all the relationships with all These online poker rooms, casinos, sports books and all the sports books were converting over to, to poker sites like Bovada or Bodog had Bovado and, and so forth and bet on sports. I'd bet on sports poker and there was Gaming Club had Gaming Club Poker and, and so forth. And party poker was coming out and so forth, right? So we did that and we started getting, you know, just the, again, these record, record, you know, you know, buys, right? You know, these guys were fighting to buy us because the only place they buy spots in the magazine because the only place they really had at that time was Card Player, right in Gambling Online magazine. But with the newfound kind of the, the new, the newfound, you know, popularity of poker, it was a different audience. The, the players were younger, they were watching, you know, they were starting to watch the shows on tv. They were, you know, enamored with all these poker players who were like wrestlers, right? I mean everybody had their stick. You had the Unabomber, you had the magician, you had the Texas Dolly, you had the Brat, you know, I mean, so everybody kind of had their, their wrestle, their wrestling kind of name to them. And you know, when we'd go to poker tournaments, these people would carry these autograph books and get know Phil Hellmuth designed for them and in, in Texas Dolly, you know, Doyle Brunson, you know, rest, rest in peace. It, it was, it was amazing. And I was like, these are just professional gamblers, right? I, I, I, I couldn't get my mind, but I'm like, we're on to something and right? Heck, I mean we lo, we launched In, I think October 2004, sold out every single page of advertising in the magazine for more money than we should, than we should have, right? And we had a print run, I think at that time of 250,000. We, we bought end caps at Walmart and all the poker stores and we the newsstands. And that's when obviously magazines were still big, right? Obviously the whole magazine space is very much condensed. But we were everywhere. We were at the airport, we were at the airports. I mean, we strategically bought, you know, in, in like Reno and Las Vegas and anywhere where there was, you know, poker rooms and so forth. You could find, you could find our magazine in there and we just blew up. And from there we were more innovative than anyone else out there. We, you know, we had a fantasy poker game, the first fantasy poker game that ever existed. And you know, we had it sponsored by like poker stars. And eventually we in essence leased it to ESPN for a Good chunk of change. Then we came out with like the bluff poker tour. You know, there was an online tour. Every week we went to a different online site and we always were just innovative in terms of what we did. I mean one year, I think it was 2000, 2006. The, the world Series used to have like a, like almost like a carnival atmosphere, right where you could then boost that you could buy in a big, big room and you know, people were, had DJs playing. Well, we had the biggest booth out there with this, you know, 60 foot cover of the magazine, you know, dominating. We gave out something like 60,000 shirts. I, I kid you not, we had so many shirts that you couldn't go to a poker room without read seeing a so unwearing bluff. Hell, we had homeless people wearing bluff shirts, right? I remember walking, rocking, walking across the bridge from I think it was Caesars to Bellagio and there was a, a guy panhandling and he had a bluff shirt on. He asked him for money. I'm like, I've already, I've already dressed you right. So you know, we did that. And then the next year we had this thing called bubble insurance where if you were, and this is before patches were a big deal, people were wearing shirts. So if you were the bluff shirt and, and basically finished, this is for the main event finished. I think it's five or seven for the bubble. We'd buy you in the following year, right? So we had like 1200 people wearing our shirts. Now not every person was wearing it when they should be right. We got close to the bubble and you started seeing people putting on their, putting on their shirts and so and so forth and they got disqualified but nobody actually we have to pay for anyone. But we wanted to, but those are the things that we did that were so innovative. And you know, we didn't worry about, you know, like I said, how to play ace king off suit. We had some strategy, but it's more like poker. Like a rock star with Antonio Svendari who wrote about his life away from the table and, and going on these cruises and these poker cruise. Not even poker cruises. I think it's called the candy cruise. And it was just with all these models and him being a single guy, good looking guy and so forth. We had, you know, Gentile writing about her life in poker. We had Scott Ian from Anthrax writing for us. I mean any back in the day, Annie Duke, Phil Locke. I mean we, we had the biggest names that were young up and coming, what we considered superstars. Of poker and that I think that really, that really helped get us to where we needed to be. Not to mention, you know, we had relationships with espn, Fox, Fox Sports, Ask Men. So we were making relationships and providing poker content with some of the biggest men men's portals out there that rivaled the likes of Maxim magazine. So I think that's why we were, we were so popular and why the poker boom was. Was really good to us until. Until the, you know, the dreaded day of April 15, 2011, when, you know, poker kind of went away for a while when it was called Black Friday. So yeah, that one kind of. That one kind of stung a bit. But yeah, it's a lot of fun.
- [13:24]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
How do you bounce back from being, you know, on the end cap of Walmart or, or having your readership being picked up as, you know, the thing somebody wants to grab before they get on a flight? You know, as, as you're describing this, I'm thinking like, that is exactly how I was living my life with the interests of, of the time during those decades, right? Like, I would consume any magazine, any article. I would want to go to the stores or the places where I could find things that were of my interest to, you know, fast forward through our Black Friday. And then now what? The advertising space. And you can consume content from morning until night and still never get it all, you know. How, how have things changed a bit into where you are and what you're doing now in the poker space?
- [14:14]
Eric Morris
Well, well, we sold. We sold bluff back in 2012, and I got out of it for a little bit and went and went. And at that point, magazines were somewhat dying a little bit. You know, people were trying to sell. It was a little early for this, but people were trying to. To sell content online. And it, and it didn't really work.
- [14:34]
Joe Scales
Right.
- [14:34]
Eric Morris
The advertising had, as you know, drove, dried up. No more poker stars money. No more Full Tilt money. No more Bodog Bovada money. No more Ultimate Poker money. So everything had dried up, right. In 2011 that happened. How do we re reinvent ourselves? It was rough. I mean, that was for all the good that we had done and all the money that we had made. This hit us like a, like a, you know, a wall of bricks, right? It was, it was disastrous. We lost 70% of our revenue overnight. It's. It's hard to recover. I mean, what do we do? We cut our print runs down significantly. We let, we have to let go of people. Yeah, we, we have to kind of do. We started another magazine called Fight Magazine right around that time. So we, we, we tried to supplement what we were doing by having another pub, another publication. But, but, and that, and that, that went well, but again, it wasn't poker. And I was never really, I was really totally never into ufc. My partner, that was kind of his thing, but we had to like, you know, start finding smaller sites like lock poker, reefer poker. I mean, there's all the merge, merge poker. But they, but they weren't Giving us the 12,000, $15,000, you know, you know, print pages that we were getting, the advertising pages we were getting. So we were getting like 5,000, $5,000 per page. And, and I was putting a lot of money, a lot of money into the company, right? It was to the point where we're, they're going to make it or break it. We, we. I was telling Joe earlier today that come kind of the fall, we were talking about me, my partner, our developer and a designer working out of my house again and seeing what we could do by cutting all sorts of costs because, you know, we had like a 5,000, $5,000 rent that we had to pay every month, these huge print bills and so forth, and it was, it was scary, man. It was, it was as good of a time we had. This was the definite low point of, of my business life, right? It, it just. We know what to do. And then we got a call, then we got a call one day from, from Churchill Downs Twinspires, you know, talking to us about, are you guys interested in selling blah, blah, blah. And we're like, we're interested. We were like, well, hell yeah, we're interested. Right? But we didn't want to let on because if you start getting a little too excited, you know, they, they, they can see that, they'll lowball you. So like, yeah, we might be interested. What'd you have in mind? Would you like to meet and like, yeah, we'll be there Monday, right? So this is over Thanksgiving. So they, we met on Monday and they said, we want to absorb you. Their goal was to start a poker poker. A poker site. They thought, they thought regulation was coming and we did too. So they wanted to be one of the first regulated poker sites out there because they had gaming license in various states and we agreed upon a price. Upon a price. And in February 12, 2012, we basically sold to them. And it was none. It, it was, it could have happened at a better time for us, right? I mean, I had had, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars into, into the company trying to Keep people on. So, because I mean, again, you see people had families, they were, that they had the support and they had been with us for eight, 10 years and we didn't want to just let them go. But there's a point where we had to let a few people go. But I was, you know, paid, I was paying out of my own pocket and it was, it was tough. So you know, that, that, that payday definitely helped. I was able to recoup all the money that I had that I had spent. And more importantly, we had a publicly traded company, Churchill Downs, you know, kind of take the helps. But I stayed with them for about six months and it's, I've never been a corporate kind of guy, right? I mean I'm a shorts, T shirt, you know, hat wearing kind of guy and I can't even tie a tie. And we started having to do all these training courses on how to, how to operate social media and you know, sexual harassment classes that we all had to take. Not that we were doing it, but it was something I'd never been part of and didn't really like it, to be quite honest. So I left in September and, and moved on and started, took some time off, built another house and then started working for Ultimate Poker, which was the first regulated online poker site based out of Vegas and did that for a year until they folded just because they couldn't have liquidity. So long story short is bluff started dwindling after they bought us. They didn't want to invest in us, invest in the company much. They wanted to really use it as a poker, as a poker platform for their, for, as a gaming site and they closed it down I think in 2014, 2015, because there just wasn't advertising dollars to support it. So the, the industry has changed a lot in terms of now it's advertising. I mean poker is more popular than ever. Right. It's, there just doesn't seem to be the advertising dollars that want to support it. Right. For, for some, for some strange reasons. And maybe you guys can let me know because I'm not really on the advertising side of, of poker media anymore. I'm more on the, on the gaming, on the gaming side, the processing side, credit card processing side and so forth. So I guess, let me ask you, I mean, how, how have you seen it change in just the last several years?
- [19:45]
Joe Scales
Well, you want to take it? Yeah, I mean basically everybody's got their, the marketing in, in their own in house. Right. And I, I, we've started to see though the pendulum Switch a little bit, it's starting to swing a little bit more to where they, they, after Covid, they really kind of hunkered down with their money and, and now, now they're seeing you can't just live off of that same pool and they've got to venture out. Now the trick is being the one that they want to venture out to.
- [20:31]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
And I have a theory and I could be completely off base, but my, my observation in theory is all based on how social media just exploded, especially during, you know, lockdown times where the whole world, it wasn't just the United States, it wasn't just poker, but if you look at other industries, I think they, they are experiencing the same. So as you, as you come back from and reopening brick and mortar, you are hiring people and investing in people to do your social media and to do that advertising. So not only are you now investing in people, you're investing in their 401k, you're investing in their PTO, you're investing in any type of incentive that you give them that's tied to an initiative in a business. And so that reduces the amount that the organization itself is going to be willing to give to others to get the word out. And so you have, you know, this generation of 20 and 30 somethings that actually have degrees in social media marketing. And so they're coming out with all this fantastic ideas. And I think there's organizations like ourselves and others and certainly what you've experienced, where we're going, we've got an audience we could share your information with. And they go, but we have this person that can do all these things on the Internet. And so I think the whole advertising and businesses is, if I could say, just casting a wide net. Everybody's learning, how does this work? Who's their audience, what are the, what are the data points? Who are we actually reaching? Who's actually opening? You know, I mean, something that we made a conscious decision to do and some people agree with it and some people don't, is we're online only. And part of that is we have a broader reach. And we can tell you instead of printing a hundred thousand magazines that we know are sent to these addresses, I can actually tell people who advertise with us, you know, we can both tell them they stayed on this page for this amount of time and this number of people saw, I can't tell you that when it's in print, I can just tell you where it went. And so we have data now that we didn't have available 10 and 15 and 20 years ago.
- [22:48]
Eric Morris
Five years ago.
- [22:50]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yeah, exactly. And so it does change the game. And one thing I'd love to talk even more about now is bluffers and what you do on a daily basis. Because as your story has unfold, what I hear, Eric, is your excitement and your enthusiasm for the people in poker hasn't changed. It's how you're reaching them. And so that's what we're excited about with you.
- [23:14]
Eric Morris
I think one of my strengths is not only in poker, but, you know, and what I do is that I, I understand how to build a community, right? And I, I feel like any business that's going to be successful, and it's not just poker, right? It can be, you know, whatever you have to. You have to get people to buy into what you're. What you're selling, right? And what you're doing. And if you get them to buy in, they take ownership. They take ownership of what you're doing, and that's pretty powerful, right? So with. With bluffers, and for those of the people who don't know what bluffers is, you know, a couple years ago, I think it was March of 2024, a lot of people that I played poker with, we called them bluffers back in the day, right? In the bluff magazine days, before social media got really big. It was. It was forums. People used to go to poker forums, right, and get their information and, and meet people and talk. And we had a. We had a huge forum and we had hundreds of thousands of people sitting on our. On our forum. And one of those was the bluff was the bluffers group. And that's where, you know, we all met. We talked about, you know, what we like to do, where we want to play. You know, a lot of it was a lot of interpersonal type of correspondence, and a lot of it was, oh, you donkey. Played that. And, you know, a lot of fun we had. You know, I could never get away from this today, but one of the members put thong of the day. So he'd put a picture of a woman in a thong, right?
- [24:30]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Oh, boy.
- [24:31]
Eric Morris
Needless to say, the most popular topic of, you know, we had like 30 different topics, and I was the most. The popular one, but it was. It was pretty funny. So in any case, we had a group of us. There's probably 50, 50 plus, if not more, that correspondent every day. And I was a moderator and went in and talked, and those same people would play the bluff poker tour online and so forth. And we started talking and like, I'M not forgetting, I'm not sure who, who said it, but they start saying, oh God, it'd be nice to play together again. I'm like, yeah, it kind of would. So I, you know, we had a relationship with, with Mike. Leah is a very well known poker player, one of the, probably, arguably one of the top five players in the world right now. I mean, coming off some big wins. And he had a club called the Whale Club. Was it on gg? On GG Club gg. And we talked to him and said, why don't we bring some players over here? We'll start bringing, we'll start bringing the bluffers guys over. And we, I think we had tournaments every Wednesday and every Sunday. That was it, right? And then we had sit and goes that you could come and play when sitting goes are still kind of popular a couple years ago and we were getting, we were getting 20, 30 people playing. And I thought we could do better. And people, when we created a telegram, a telegram channel and a Facebook page and so forth, which I'll get to in a sec. And then I started making a relationship with, with Lupe, who we both know, we both love Lupe, right? Lupe Soto and Lips and I went to Lupi and said, lupe, why don't we do this? Why don't we start running satellites for you and women only tournaments and bring your players over there and we can do some qualifiers for your, you know, for your various events over the course of the year. And she loved the idea. And we started bringing, you know, more ladies over and, and it just grew and grew and grew. And you're kind of, that's kind of
- [26:20]
Elliot Schecter
where we are here.
- [26:21]
Eric Morris
We've made more relationship with some bar poker leagues, brought those people in relationships with you guys, which we can obviously dive in a little bit. And I think again, what, what separates from us because there's a lot of different clubs out there, whether it's poker bros or, you know, other club. GG and so forth is that one. We vet every person that comes onto the site, right? We don't just open it up free for all. We don't, we don't do, we don't do advertise. We don't like advertise. Come play with us. Right? Everything is, you know, an invite or, you know, someone or, you know, a Lips member or a friend of a friend or, you know, strategic relationships like we have with you guys, right? I mean, we want recreational players. We're not looking for the pros. None of us, none of us is going to, you know, I hate to say it, none of us is going to be playing, you know, 2000, 4000, you know, blinds, right. And aunties and so forth. God, there's those games out there though. And they do. And I think, and again, as I said, I'm very good at building community. So what we want to do is we want to celebrate people's wins and let people know you did something great. So if someone wins a tournament, we do a big profile on them. A profile on them, we put a picture of them, we talk about what they did, how much they won. And on Wednesdays we have our freeze out, which is our only freeze out because everybody loves the rebuys now. And if you win that, you get a, I'll show you, you get a bluff poker chip. Right. And that's our version of the trophy. And it's the only way you can get it is by winning the Wednesday freeze out. So people want that chip and it's got a value in the club. Doesn't have a value to anyone out there. Although when I do mail them out, they seem to get stolen because people feel it and think it's a coin and they're going to, you know, they see this and then toss it. But it has, has perceived value to, as a trophy that you accomplished something in there. And now our fields are growing. I mean hell, we had our biggest tournament, we had something like 250 players in there. Now that was our two year anniversary tournament. But 250 buy ins is pretty, pretty significant. But we're averaging like on A Monday, Sunday, 130, 140 players. Right. And most even our freeze out, we gain, you know, close to 100 every tournament.
- [28:34]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yeah. And it seems like there's a game for anybody any time. And I think that's one of the reasons why we were so excited to meet you and partner with you is because for the everyday poker player, maybe that means I go to work at 5 in the afternoon and I want to play at 9 in the morning. Right. Or vice versa. You know, I might have just gotten off night shift or I might have gotten off a 12 hour shift and I want to get another, another game in before I go to bed. Or, or for instance, I, I can hear Lupe's voice when you, when you probably pitch this idea. Yes. Why haven't we thought of this sooner? Because you know, not everyone who plays poker has that extra 2 to $4,000 laying around to say I'm definitely going to get that plane ticket. I definitely want to do that. And how many times have we planned on doing something that we want to do and a life event happens and you go, well, there went my buy in because I needed two new tires or my kid got sick or like we're talking about everyday lifestyle stuff that you have to say, well, gas going up right now.
- [29:40]
Eric Morris
I mean, heck, it's an extra $20 just to fill up your car or
- [29:43]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
50 or however much. I mean, quite honestly, that's a very good point. And so, so you, you, you let people know there's opportunity for you to play in this online game to possibly get on a cruise in August with us or come to the spring festival with Lupe and, and that's exciting.
- [30:00]
Eric Morris
Well, yeah, I mean you can, you can to go back a little bit, you can actually start playing. I think it's our first game is at 9, 9:30 in the morning Eastern time. And I think our last one something at 2:30 in the morning Eastern time. Right. So we cater to both sides of the, of the coast.
- [30:17]
Joe Scales
Right.
- [30:18]
Eric Morris
But yeah, I mean I think what's attractive is one, we've got women only tournaments. So if women just want to play with women, we've got plenty of those and some bigger ones. Like we've got like a 5,000 guarantee that we do weekly and, and we've got, you know, 8 to 10,000 guarantees for men and women. You know, and our buy ins aren't, aren't that expensive. And I think the biggest buy in right now is $100. But we have satellites to get in that. But the average buy in is about $20, which is affordable to people. And I mean we have people who are winning thousands of dollars. We, we just had one, one lady who won back to back tournaments and she made $1,000 in two nights.
- [30:55]
Elliot Schecter
Right.
- [30:55]
Eric Morris
With a $20 buy in, I would take it. Yeah, there's not a lot of places you can get that. So the competition is good. You've, it's a little loose sometimes. Right. The, the ladies like action and we've got about, I would say 70, 30 late in skew of ladies playing with us just because we have lips. And Chris Reed's bought a lot of, brought a lot of her players over and, and so forth. So. And again, women play with women, they like to play with women. So they, they come on. I think we've kind of been now the destination for, for women in poker online. Right. I mean, because we're the official platform of lips. So yeah, there's something for everyone. And I mean and we do things that other people don't. Don't do. Like, we celebrate wins. We, we really do. We, we profile people. Hey, get to, get to know this player today, and we ask a list of questions. And it's not just poker. It's like, what's your favorite show? What makes you goofy, you know, what puts you on tilt, you know, just to get more interpersonal with. With people without being so blatantly, you know, invasive in their lives, so to speak.
- [31:55]
Joe Scales
Right?
- [31:56]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yeah. And those are the profiles that I'm scrolling in my lunch hour or my breaks or as I'm going from one place to the other, or maybe I'm riding, you know, passenger as he's driving. I'm like, Joe, these are funny. Like, these are really fun to read. Like, I haven't met so and so, but I now I know when I see their screen name, I know a little bit about them. They actually seem real.
- [32:17]
Eric Morris
Yeah, 100%. Because again, when you, back in the day when you played on Poker Stars in Full Tilt, you didn't know you were. I mean, there's 5 million people playing. Right. Or whatever the amount is, but you didn't know who they are. And you could tag them and write notes on them, but probably weren't playing with them again. Right. It's just luckily, draw, I was staying at the same table with them and there wasn't a lot of. There wasn't a lot of. It wasn't very personal, so to speak. I think what we offer is a personal kind of community where you get to know these players. You get to know them, you know, through our Facebook page, through our Facebook, you know, group chats and through our telegram chats and even online chatting.
- [32:53]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
And.
- [32:53]
Eric Morris
And you do really see the personalities. I mean, I talk to everybody all day long just because, you know, they want to be funded and so forth. And, you know, I feel like I'm. I'm part. I'm part banker and part therapist because you see that person, how did they call King 3 on me? I had pocket aces. And sometimes I'm the same way. I'm like, I know. I just, I just had a set of sevens and someone called, you know, a gut shot drawn me and hit it and, you know, stuff. I play the part of therapist and sometimes patient as well. Yeah, Again. And I know it's funny, you know, people band together, they, they meet and then they, you know, they have their little relationships through chat or they, you know, through telegram or whatever. And it's, it's great because these people are making friends with people they didn't know, you know, a year, two years ago, six months ago. And it's, it's fantastic just to see the, the friendships evolve. And I think that's one of the greatest things that I like about poker again is building that community, making friends. Because again, I've been very fortunate and made a good amount of money in poker, but the friends I made trump that so, so much, you know, so much harder. I mean it's, it's, I've got life, lifetime friends that I, that I have and you know, go see and you know, Lupe, I've known Lupe for 20 years and she's, she, she might be the best person I've ever met in poker. No one can say anything bad about Lupi. She is amazing. She's just, she's just a, one of a kind. Right? And she'll go, she'll go her way to help people. And she, she, if it wasn't for Lupi, we wouldn't be where we are today.
- [34:23]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Right. And, and the energy that she brings to the community and that's, that's again why Joe and I are so, and the Antioch brand is so excited to partner with bluffers is because we know that the everyday poker player is going to get met with where they are. And that's who, that's who we're about. And so let's, let's chat our own tournament coming up soon. Have we picked a date?
- [34:47]
Eric Morris
We're starting to run satellites. Tuesday. I think it's next Tuesday, all the way through the following Monday. And we'll have, we'll have the fight, well, the finals on I think Monday night at 10 o' clock or something like that, Eastern time. So you can again, you can win a 3, $500 package for an ante up cruise to Alaska for what, 10 days? I believe it's 10 days.
- [35:07]
Joe Scales
10 days, yeah.
- [35:08]
Eric Morris
And it's, and it's actually, I think it's, it's heading out in San Francisco. I think that's where.
- [35:14]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yes.
- [35:14]
Eric Morris
Board and deboard my whole hometown. Right. So you can, you can go early, you know, check out the wharf, you know, play with some seals, go to the beach a little bit. But yeah, this is fantastic. I mean we've offered, we, we've done things with trips to Malta, to Costa Rica, to Las Vegas, but we've never done a cruise before. And I think that was one of the really cool things and one of the, one of you know, reason, not necessarily the reason, but a reason why we partnered with you guys because we kind of shared the same philosophy of we were not looking to reach the pro. We want the poker community, the kind of amateur who wants to be, you know, kind of be the next poker famous person. Right?
- [35:55]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yeah.
- [35:55]
Eric Morris
Go on a cruise and go on trips and, and play with friends. And I think that was what really excited me about meeting both of you, thanks to Lupe, is that we can now run satellites for something we could never do in the past. Right. So now we have, now you guys with your poker crews. I mean, I guess the first one's in Alaska, but I'm sure there's going to be more after that that we're, that we'll be able to send players to.
- [36:17]
Joe Scales
Yeah. And then 100%, maybe we can do something for the Antiap Championship at the Venetian in December.
- [36:25]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
You know, there's possibilities.
- [36:27]
Joe Scales
Possibilities, right?
- [36:28]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
For sure.
- [36:29]
Eric Morris
Yeah. We're open to everything and bring in a new group of players to, to kind of, to kind of play with, with the group that we already have. It's just going to make our prize pools better, our tournaments bigger. And I mean, this is going to be amazing. Hopefully we'll get to send a couple players, I mean, players on the cruise. Last one, with the last event we did with Lupe, we sent I think 11 players to Las Vegas for two $500 packages. So we'll see. It's a, you know, it's a, obviously a bigger commitment to go on an 11 day vacation than, you know, three or four days in Vegas. But if I want to cruise, I'm, I'm taking time off, let me tell you.
- [37:05]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
I know, right? Well, and I think what's appealing too is, I mean, just, just like Joe and I, we don't have a local casino with within, you know, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, you know, we have a Rosie's Gaming, you know, where we could go play slots or, you know, get a half price burger or listen to a band or something like that. But one of the things that we have been craving is a poker community that is competitive, that's fair, that's trustworthy, and that also offers opportunities outside of what we normally could find and something we would have to invest time and money in. I mean, we have to spend, spend six hours in a car, round trip to get opportunities like this. And so what I think you offer, the everyday poker player is, is pretty darn phenomenal. Yeah, we would love to chat, bet on better. Maybe we could raise money for some organizations because we all would love to be able to do good and use the game for good. So that might be.
- [38:01]
Eric Morris
We've done some charity things before, and we're. We're not opposed to it. If someone can. If you or Lupe or whoever or whoever else, a member came to us and said, hey, I want to do this charity event, we'll do it. Right? I mean, we. We've got. We can do whatever we want, obviously, within reason. But yeah, I've always been very philanthropic. You know, we. I've done a lot of work with Make a Wish foundation in the past. I was actually once a spokesperson for them back in my radio DJ days. And during bluff, we did a lot of stuff with St. Jude Y. So, you know, anything that helps kids is. Is, you know, I'm. I'm a fan of as well.
- [38:37]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Well, awesome, because that's actually one thing that we wanted to let everybody know. This week is the ante up for autism. And Rivers Casino, Schenectady, New York, raised over $2,000 for their local autism chapter. And this is the very first outreach event that they've done. And so we would consider that a big success. 44 players in the tournament.
- [38:58]
Joe Scales
It was a survivor tournament, which is fun.
- [39:00]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
That's a fun format, right? I mean, everybody's kind of cutthroat when it comes to playing that format.
- [39:06]
Eric Morris
Well, when you get closer to that close, it tightens up a little bit, doesn't it? Unless you're a big tech and you start and then just start running over people.
- [39:14]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And another event coming up that we'd like to highlight, just because we know poker players also have lots of other interests, is the nhra. And when I hear it, I'm always like, why are we talking about the National Rifle? No, it's the National Hot Rod Association. And so, um, these people are fanatical about their cars and do some awesome, really cool stuff. Um, and Bob Popper, actually one of our ambassadors, brought our attention to this. Uh, they put on events everywhere. So what's the event we wanted to be sure to highlight this week?
- [39:46]
Joe Scales
Well, they've got the one coming up May 14th through the 17th. That's in the Chicagoland area.
- [39:52]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Right.
- [39:53]
Joe Scales
Uh, everybody. Everybody has hobbies. We talk about needing hobbies outside of your stress. And poker, golf, cars. Cars, all of that kind of goes hand in hand with the same audience. So, yeah, this one's cool in Chicago because it's at the rate Route 66 Speedway.
- [40:14]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yeah. Which Route 66 just turned 100.
- [40:16]
Joe Scales
Yeah.
- [40:17]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Did you know that?
- [40:18]
Joe Scales
I did, yeah.
- [40:18]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Thanks to Google. I know that My Google search reminded me the other day, and it sounds like their events just have lots of really good, like, I loved your word earlier, Eric, so I'm going to steal it. Innovative ways of interacting with their crowds. So they do autographs, they have driver introductions. They have all these different things to make an experience.
- [40:41]
Joe Scales
I think that this is where poker should be going. More access to people.
- [40:47]
Eric Morris
Well, I think. I think you're right. I think that it used to be that way, Right. Covid kind of changed things, right? I mean, that was one of the big things about poker is these players were accessible, right? They were. They're. They were so. They were so new in terms of having this fame that they'd had, right. That they were. They didn't. It was just unique to them. So, yeah, I'll sign an autograph. I'll sign your forehead. Hell, we had a guy put a bluff tattoo on his forehead. It wasn't a permanent one. It was one of those, you know, peel on ones, but he put it on his head and walked around the World Series of Poker with bluff on there. So I think, yeah, I think poker was a lot more accessible, but I think now it's getting back to where it kind of used to be. It's just in a little different ways. I think there's. I don't know if there's as many kind of shticks as there used to be. There's not as many poker brats as Unabombers and back.
- [41:36]
Elliot Schecter
True.
- [41:37]
Eric Morris
So luck doesn't even want to be known as a Unabomber anymore. Magicians, I think more people are. They're accessible, but they're more interested in, okay, I, I, you know, playing, you know, GTO poker. And, you know, they're all the, like, the nerds out there, you know, factoring how I should play this hand into his gto, say, and stuff like that. So they're not. They're not necessarily as fun of a group as they're used to be, but they're accessible and they'll talk to people, but they want to talk strategy and not just, hey, you want to go to the club tonight? You know, or are you going to the club? Let me buy you a shot. Like, and that used to happen all the time, right?
- [42:10]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
And I think that also is a reflection of that data and the technology that has grown. And so now, you know, I'll be honest, I'm more of a social player, and I'm interested in it from the point of, like, there is strategy. I'm excited to learn It. But I don't want to study a chart. It's not my go to. I need to. And I'm starting to learn how to. And, and having conversations and breaking things down from, From a different perspective than what I used to. But you're absolutely right. And that, that is, that's a whole nother realm that we're, we're starting to, to just interact with and find out
- [42:43]
Eric Morris
about is like, well, the academics of poker are so much more heard. People say I'm gonna go home after I play tonight, and I'm gonna go study for three hours or two hours.
- [42:51]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Right.
- [42:52]
Eric Morris
I'm going home and I'm going to sleep. I'm telling you that. Right, Right. But there's so many people, even you know, in the bluffers that are like, you know, I study. I. I study with this person, and this is my coach, and I'm not hiring a coach, man. I, I just want to play poker. Right? Yeah. If I lose, I lose. If I win. If I win, I win. I've been lucky that I've won more than I've lost. But I'm just not a GTO guy. And I'm old. I'm an old. I'm old school. I like to have fun. I'll have a beer at the poker table and, you know, and talk and hope, you know, no one gets offended. They won't. I mean, I'm not, I'm not obnoxious, and I don't necessarily like playing with obnoxious people, but I want to be social. I want to talk to people. I want to meet people you kind of know, find out their tales and, and, you know, get a little get reads on them and so forth. But it's also fun, you know. But again, like you said, I'm three hours away from Cherokee Casino because I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, and I don't want to drive three hours, play for three hours, and come home three hours later. Right.
- [43:46]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
No.
- [43:47]
Eric Morris
Although I will be going up there in a couple weeks, so.
- [43:50]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Well, you got to plan. But just like you said, you got to plan and just like being able to sit around the table, I would, you know, welcome this conversation any day of the week because it's social, because we're understanding what's going on and what's happening. And before we kind of wrap things up, we have to mention that speaking of being social. Yeah. Is we're actually going to go into a space on X. This is still just boggles my mind. We're going to an X space with Sherry Pluscotta tonight, which is one of the founding members of the wpa. And we're just going to chat like it's just like this. It is just meeting, having a conversation. What's up in poker, what's up in poker media, what's up in poker cruising, what's happening if anybody wants to check it out.
- [44:36]
Joe Scales
Yeah, it's going to be on. We're going to be on there 7:30 tonight, Eastern, Eastern.
- [44:41]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
And I'm going to put the link out in all the socials and, and so on and so forth. It's out there, yes, as of yesterday if you want to check it out. But you know, after the podcast gets released, we're going to jump on and have more fun and more conversation, which is what it's all about, Eric.
- [44:54]
Eric Morris
So much more fun than scripted.
- [44:56]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [44:57]
Eric Morris
Like this. I mean, I didn't know where this was going to go. I knew where it's kind of going to go. But we can go off in little tangents, which I tend to do, but they're fun. I mean it's unscripted. You just learn more about, you know, the person you're, you're interviewing or the person that's doing the interviewing and so forth. It's just more interpersonal, you know, agree.
- [45:16]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
And so if you want more of this, if you want more interaction, if you want to get on the cruise for a very small buy in at a tournament, you can certainly sign up for a satellite starting next Tuesday to the following Monday. Right?
- [45:27]
Joe Scales
If you want. Yes. But if you want to get in there, get in there. Now you can, we've got the banner on our website. Just scroll down and click on the banner. That'll get you to the directions so
- [45:41]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
you can get how to get signed up.
- [45:43]
Joe Scales
Get in there and get signed up.
- [45:44]
Eric Morris
And if you want more information, we just posted something on our, on our Facebook page. Bluffers Poker. Go there, you'll see, you'll see a whole step. What you need to do, you can friend, always friend request me if you're, when you sign up. Because if you send me a message and we're not connected, it'll go to spam and I won't see it. Right. And that's not that I'm ignoring you, it's just that I don't see you. So friend request me. Eric Morris, you can. I do most of the posting on the bluffers thing. Just request it and I'll, I'll get you going. We'll get you funded. If you have any questions how to sign up. But it's, it's pretty, it's pretty simple. You download Club gg, type in, you know, our club code and then your referral code. So we, and make sure you type in the anti up referral code because we won't know you came from ante up.
- [46:29]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Right.
- [46:29]
Eric Morris
If you don't do that.
- [46:30]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
So you have wondering what the heck do we do? We'll help you. So we're also going to repost your post as well so that it's very clear and straightforward because we found the process to be super easy.
- [46:41]
Eric Morris
Yeah, Mike and I are good. I mean I, I sat On a, a WhatsApp, you know, video call for 20 minutes getting someone signed up yesterday and it was a hoot. She was in Hawaii. She was so. She was so fun to talk to. I think we talked more about life than we did about poker. But those are the people you meet and the best. And the best kind of the best friends that you, you meet are kind of unknowing. Right? Yeah.
- [47:04]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Agree.
- [47:04]
Eric Morris
I'm happy to help anyone. So is Mike. Mike, Leah. So friend us both and we'll, we'll get you settled and maybe you'll, maybe you'll end up in, in Alaska on a cruise with both, Both of you guys.
- [47:14]
Joe Scales
Love it.
- [47:15]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
We would love it. Thank you so much for coming and joining us today, Eric, as always, it's a pleasure being around the table with you.
- [47:21]
Joe Scales
Likewise.
- [47:22]
Eric Morris
Take care of yourselves. Bye.
- [47:23]
Patrick
All
- [47:26]
Eric Morris
wisdom cuts like a blade Dropping true bombs with a poker parade big blinds, big STs raising up up let's make no mistake.
- [47:39]
Joe Scales
Elliot Schecter joins us each week to say how he would ruin situations that come up in your games. And he's with us again this week. Elliot, how's it going?
- [47:48]
Elliot Schecter
Things are going pretty well, thanks. How you doing, Joe?
- [47:52]
Joe Scales
Good. You know, the rain has kind of dampered some of the pollen, so, you know, I think at first it just stirred it up and made it worse. But now we've had rain for a while, so it's starting to bring it down a little bit, which is a good thing. We do have a call to floor this week sent in by Mike Henderson. And Mike is playing, it looks like he's playing in his home game. It's a one, two no limit hold' em game. And they decided to do a double board bomb pot. So Everybody tossed in $10. I would have thought that they would have tossed in five, but they went all the way up to $10 and we put out two flops. Action checks around to a Player who says pot and he says in our regular PLO bomb pots, pot is obviously a thing, but this was hold' em before we even had time to discuss this. The next player says all in, then the action is stopped because one of the players said that pot isn't a legal action in no Limit hold' Em and should be ruled a check. Now there's quite the discussion. One side says the word pot should bind him to a pot sized bet because everyone obviously knew what he meant. And another side says pot isn't a legal declaration in no Limit hold'.
- [49:31]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
Em.
- [49:32]
Joe Scales
So their question to you, Elliot, in no Limit hold' Em is saying pot a binding declaration. And I think this one's pretty clear. Should the dealer have stopped the action before allowing the next player to act? And once another player jams behind can then the original better who said potential change anything?
- [49:55]
Elliot Schecter
So I think we're going to be taking two different rows to get to the same result, Mike and I'll lay these steps out for you. In no Limit hold', Em, a declaration of pot is rendered meaningless as to the amount of the bet. Notice how I chose my words. The dealer should have stopped the action there because the player was trying to do something and checking was probably not one of the things the player meant to do.
- [50:38]
Joe Scales
Right.
- [50:40]
Elliot Schecter
And because if you, if you let the word pot become checked, you're gonna number one, make your game incredibly confusing if you play more than one type of poker. So if you switch from no limit games to pot limit games and back and you will all of a sudden in some games pot is a check and pot is pot, you're gonna have problems. So don't do that. So the next point is if you allow the word pot to be used as a check in no limit, you're going to let people shoot angles. Yeah, Using this very situation as an example, which is inadvertent, there's no way this guy meant to shoot an angle. We know this, I'm pretty sure. But if a guy can say pot without having to put a chip in the pot and get his, the people after him to act, he has information he shouldn't have acted with and he's gaining information from those players in a rather harmful way. And he's making moves on the pot without the liability, as we discussed last week, he's getting to affect things, he's getting the effect of an actual bet without having to actually put a chip in the pot. So you can't do that either. So yes, the dealer should have stopped the action to Clarify what the bet is. The problem is the other player acted immediately.
- [52:15]
Joe Scales
Right.
- [52:16]
Elliot Schecter
Which brings us to yet another rule in no limit hold'. Em. Especially, A player's turn doesn't end until it's complete, meaning that the next player doesn't have their turn yet until the bet in front of them is complete. And this was not the case. There was obviously at least mild confusion, if not outright anarchy, and it was not clear what was going on. Therefore, that person's turn was not over yet. It was not time for the player who declared all in to act. It was not their turn yet. Therefore, they acted out of turn, allowing the player in front of them to obviously check and leave their no limit. I mean, they're all in bet in effect. So we can still get there to the same result by interpreting the rules in order and the way they should be. If the guy moving all in would have waited for clarification, he could have trapped a little money in the pot, but instead decided not to. There was no money in the pot. He acted, we're done here. It lets. I mean, you could theoretically let the guy off the hook who said Popeye, literally placing a minimum bet, I guess, $2. So, yeah, if you're going to act and you don't have all the information in front of you, don't get her for clarification. Wait, Just sit still. So, yeah. Which all goes to show that allowing somebody to say pot and make it be a check can really make things difficult for the rest of the players at the table. So, yeah, right. The dealer needed to speak up. The players needed to stop the action. The guy betting all, it needed to display a little bit of patience. Something that generally goes a long way in poker.
- [54:27]
Joe Scales
Yeah. I think if I were one of the players acting after them, then I would be like, he was very excited to get that all in. I may have to let this one go, but every now and then we have a moment where I can, you know, I can. I can. I have an opportunity to say, okay, this is how I would have handled this situation, and then see if you think this is right or not. But with, in this case, with it being a bomb pot, they all put the money out, you know, pre flop. So if we have eight players, just
- [55:10]
Elliot Schecter
say, we know how much the pot is. This is true.
- [55:13]
Eric Morris
Yeah.
- [55:13]
Elliot Schecter
It's simple.
- [55:14]
Joe Scales
So it's pretty easy to say, put $80 in there. Let's move on. Don't say pot again in a home game.
- [55:21]
Elliot Schecter
I'm not so sure. I wouldn't disagree. I think that's probably a great decision. In a home game setting. Yeah. In a home game, you certainly want to find the solution that doesn't accuse somebody of shooting an angle or, or doing something intentionally. A foul of etiquette. And there's no reason not to think this just wasn't an honest mistake. Obviously, based on the context, they're playing PLO bomb pots on a regular basis. And when you're playing in a bomb pot, you're, you're obviously used to things going a little bit differently than the normal action.
- [55:58]
Eric Morris
So.
- [55:58]
Elliot Schecter
Yeah, that I completely agree. I think in a home game situation, it's okay to actually reinterpret what's happening. In a casino setting, we're not going to count the pot in.
- [56:12]
Joe Scales
Right.
- [56:13]
Elliot Schecter
In a non pot limit game, it's just that simple. It's up to the players to keep track of what's happening and, and what's in the pot and who's in the pot. We will let you know how many players are in the pot. We're not going to point out each individual player, period. But in home games you have to know this. And with the mess of cards and the random distribution of the pot on the table. Yeah. Identifying who's in and who's not is a much more shared and open responsibility. Same with the betting. So clarification in this pot is probably due to stand on principle over what on the surface appears to be a very, very honest error. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There's no proof or inclination that this guy was trying to do something other than bet the approximate amount of the pot.
- [57:21]
Joe Scales
Right. So in a casino setting then do we just kind of not ignore but come back to the player who bet pot and they're going to have to bet something?
- [57:38]
Elliot Schecter
Oh yeah. The dealer's supposed to speak up immediately, sir, that betting the pot is not a valid bet. What do you want to do? The dealer's supposed to speak up. Stop. Folks, hold on. Yeah, it's supposed to get clarification. You're not just supposed to, oh, that's not a bet and move on. That's rude. It's uncalled for. It doesn't help the game. And you're bypassing a player's intent. I mean, if a guy's speaking up and not using the word check or pass, the intention is to bet and you want to make sure a bet gets out there. Keeping bets out of the pot is not good for the game.
- [58:14]
Joe Scales
So does he. If you come back to him, then does he have all of his options available to him.
- [58:19]
Elliot Schecter
He's going to bet something. He doesn't have all of his options. He has all of his betting options available. Yes. He has no other options.
- [58:28]
Joe Scales
And then we go back to the person that put it all. Put said all in. Are they bound to that or can they then do whatever?
- [58:38]
Elliot Schecter
They're bound to it. Nothing changed. Nothing changed at all. A guy made a bet, he went all in because he acted out of turn. Because the bet in front of him wasn't complete doesn't give him the right to change his mind and change up his action based on what he sees. He doesn't get that right. Especially because he acted out of turn. You lose your rights when you break the rules and act out of turn. You don't gain rights and gain information. That's not the way the game's supposed to work. Any bet placed into the pot wouldn't change a thing because he was raising whatever the bet was going to be, period.
- [59:18]
Joe Scales
Right.
- [59:18]
Elliot Schecter
There's no other way to interpret that. So that all in bed is still an all in bed. Yeah. In no limit games, an all in bet out of turn is always an all in bet. Just like a fold out of turn is always a fold regardless of what action happens. So, okay, yeah, let's keep things simple. Let's keep things fair. Let's make sure that people don't turn a. A game of information and, and subterfuge into angle and re angle.
- [59:49]
Joe Scales
Right. So I guess the, the moral of the story is, is keep it simple. I won't, I won't, I won't say the whole kiss but kiss acronym there. But, but keep it simple.
- [60:06]
Elliot Schecter
Yes, absolutely.
- [60:07]
Joe Scales
There you go. And then come back, let him complete his action, move it on the next players all in, and then everyone has their opportunity to act thereafter. So yeah, that's. That. That makes a lot of sense. So Mike, I appreciate you sending that in. That's, that's a really good discussion there. And so when, when the bomb pots come up next time, then it's pretty easy to know how to rule in that situation. But if anyone has a call the floor that they would like to know how Elliott would rule, send it to podcastyupmagazine.com Please do. Elliot, we'll see you next week.
- [60:57]
Elliot Schecter
Absolutely. I'll see you then.
- [61:10]
Joe Scales
Welcome to Hand of the Week where Patrick, our resident fish and I dive into listener submitted hands each week. We tackle everything from questionable bluffs to hero calls and the hands that make you scratch your head. Whether you're looking for strategy tips or you just want to see if you would have played it any better. We've got you covered. Patrick, how's it going, man?
- [61:30]
Patrick
I am pretty good, my friend. All in all, can't complain. But so much, you know, I mean,
- [61:36]
Joe Scales
Boston sports would give.
- [61:38]
Patrick
Don't start. Don't even start. I knew it. I knew it. All right, so the complaining can begin. Things haven't changed from last week, except for the one light glimmer of hope that we had a very understaffed Bruins team was making a run in the playoffs. And that run is done. My 4 year old is still running around and in his David Posternak jersey. I haven't had the heart to tell him that they've been eliminated yet. So when he has to watch the Bruins on TV soon, I'll have to tell him. But, you know, other than that, we're just. We're. We're living, man.
- [62:10]
Joe Scales
I.
- [62:10]
Patrick
It's. It's another day and we'll continue. The Red Sox suck and yeah, other than that, things are great, man. Ready to play some cards? How about that?
- [62:21]
Joe Scales
Yeah, let's, let's actually, let's jump in here. We've got hand of the week this week. It's sent in by Oscar York. And I've never seen Oscar spelled this way. O S K A R. I love it.
- [62:38]
Patrick
Sounds like. Sounds like a guy I'd like to hang out with. I could do that.
- [62:43]
Joe Scales
He says love the show and figured I'd send in something to get Patrick out of his Holden comfort zone.
- [62:52]
Patrick
Oh, my God. What?
- [62:57]
Joe Scales
This is a 1, 2 Omaha High Low or 8 or better cash game.
- [63:04]
Patrick
God, Oscar.
- [63:09]
Joe Scales
He says table is loose. Lots of players chasing anything that even smells like a low.
- [63:17]
Patrick
Can I put a disclaimer on here, Joe?
- [63:20]
Joe Scales
Yeah. What's up?
- [63:21]
Patrick
For all the. For all the haters out here. This is not my normal forte, so if I do anything rather stupid, let's just leave the hate comments. So there's lots of people that don't play this. So anyway, all right, I like it. You know what? Out of the comfort zone. It's fun. Thanks, Oscar. Let's do this.
- [63:41]
Joe Scales
It's funny though, that, that we're playing this now because I, I literally just the other day I had a conversation with the guy who, Andrew, who, Who had submitted a call the floor, I guess it was last week, and his call the floor, he mentioned that, you know, he had been considering sending in a hand of the week that he had sent in to Scott and Chris and see how different we Played it from what they did however many years ago. I got tons of feedback this week about, about that, wanting to see it. And so I reached out to him. He's going to send it in. But he did tell me, so this is good heads up for you. This is, it is a no limit Omaha 8. So this is good practice for that one. All right.
- [64:39]
Patrick
At least I know that one's coming. Oscar just threw this one at me. All right.
- [64:42]
Joe Scales
Yeah, this one just kind of came out of the blue. Oscar says he's sitting with about 325. We get three limpers to us in the cutoff, and we look down at the ace of spades, two of hearts, king of diamonds, jack of clubs.
- [65:07]
Patrick
All right, for all the novices out there, let's make sure I got this right. You have to play two at only
- [65:15]
Joe Scales
two of your cards and only two. That's correct. Now it can be a different two for the high and a different two for the low.
- [65:22]
Eric Morris
Right.
- [65:22]
Joe Scales
We could use the king jack for the high and the ace deuce for the low.
- [65:28]
Patrick
But in that instance, and that was my first thought, tell me if I'm wrong. That's a pretty good little spread. I mean, in what we got right here. It's not, it's. This is not a. A bad.
- [65:40]
Eric Morris
Okay,
- [65:43]
Patrick
so limpers to us for sure.
- [65:45]
Joe Scales
Yeah, some good high potential, some nut low potential.
- [65:49]
Patrick
So, yeah, we got limpers and a loose table. So we're probably going, you know, probably 10, right down to 10.
- [66:00]
Joe Scales
I mean, I was going 15 because we've got three limpers.
- [66:04]
Patrick
That's a good point. But it was three. You're right. You did say that. Yeah, I'm good with that. I would go higher then. I'd probably go 12 to 15 then.
- [66:13]
Joe Scales
Yeah, yeah, I think you could even go. You could even go a little bit higher just because, I don't know, you may actually use this both ways. You could just limp here because it sounds like nobody is folding. But you could also go higher to see if you could get people out of the hand. Depending on how you think the stable is going to play, the. The one thing we know is we're not folding.
- [66:49]
Patrick
No.
- [66:50]
Joe Scales
Oscar bumps it up to 12. So he's in that same area and he says, and of course, everyone thinks it's a great price. We go six ways to the flop. Six ways to the flop means there is $72 in the pot and the flop is the three of spades, five of diamonds, king of clubs. And it checks to us. He says, so I've got top pair with kings, a nut, low draw, ace, deuce.
- [67:35]
Patrick
Yep.
- [67:36]
Joe Scales
And any four makes the wheel. He says my favorite part is that there isn't a flush draw on the board yet either.
- [67:50]
Patrick
Yeah, we're sitting pretty prime, that's for sure. Time to get some people out.
- [67:58]
Joe Scales
Yeah, I mean, I, I don't want, I don't want to go against that many people in case a flush draw does start to come in. But at the same time, I want to charge and keep some people. I don't want to bet so much that we just take it down from here because we've got a lot of potential here. Right?
- [68:20]
Elliot Schecter
Yeah.
- [68:21]
Joe Scales
So the question is, what does that number look like?
- [68:27]
Patrick
40.
- [68:30]
Eric Morris
A little more than half.
- [68:32]
Patrick
Little more than half. Not too much. Just enticing enough to keep a few people around.
- [68:38]
Joe Scales
Yep. Yeah, 40 is exactly where I was. I actually, for a minute I thought we could go up to 50 or 60. But you still could. The fact that this is seems to be a super sticky table. Then you could go up to 50 or 60 to try and get people to fold. But if you don't think they're going to fold, then there's no point in it.
- [69:03]
Patrick
Right, Right, Exactly.
- [69:07]
Joe Scales
So, yeah, $40 is a good number. Oscar says it seems like a pretty solid spot, So I fire $40.
- [69:18]
Patrick
Man, I like this guy. Like him a lot.
- [69:22]
Joe Scales
The button calls, small blind calls. One of the limpers call before middle position. An older guy who hasn't gotten too crazy yet. Check raises to $140. The the other limper folds. And so it's. It's on us.
- [69:47]
Patrick
You're not going to like it, but I'm just calling.
- [69:52]
Joe Scales
No, I think, I think that's where I'm at too, honestly.
- [69:55]
Patrick
Okay.
- [69:58]
Joe Scales
We need a four to make the wheel, the steel wheel to scoop our pot. Odds are good. The thing we have to be aware of is if the board pairs, then we can be looking at a lot of boats because it sounds like he may have a set already. Right, Right. So, yeah, I just want to call and see what the turn brings.
- [70:29]
Eric Morris
Yeah.
- [70:31]
Joe Scales
Oscar says, I'm thinking I've probably got the low draw locked. My king might still be good, but also might be in trouble. I think I would lean more toward it being in trouble there.
- [70:47]
Eric Morris
Trouble.
- [70:48]
Patrick
Yep.
- [70:50]
Joe Scales
And this is Omah. So for all I know, I'm already crushed. I like he says, I call the extra hundred dollars and we end up heads up so everybody else folds. Going to the turn with already $472 in the pot, and the turn is the eight of spades. So the board is three of spades, five of diamonds, king of clubs, eight of spades. Villain doesn't think long before he just rips it in, putting me all in for my last $173. He says now I would be putting it all in for half the. Potentially. But I also start listening to this voice in my head about getting quartered. And so. Okay, first of all, Patrick, let me explain. Getting quartered, I was just going to
- [71:59]
Patrick
say for the others of us out there that have no idea what that means, please elaborate.
- [72:06]
Joe Scales
So if they win the high and we win the low, then we would split the pot. Right. But if they win the high and they have the same low as us, then they're going to win the high, half and half of the low. So then we only end up with a quarter of the pot.
- [72:30]
Patrick
So he's. He's sitting there thinking that. I mean, right now, if I'm looking at this correct, we've got ace of spades, two of hearts for the low. Ace of spades, two of hearts, three of spades, five of diamonds, eight of spades.
- [72:44]
Joe Scales
Right.
- [72:44]
Patrick
That qualifies. A low. That's a pretty good low. I mean, it's.
- [72:48]
Joe Scales
It's the nut at this point right now.
- [72:51]
Patrick
It's.
- [72:52]
Eric Morris
Yeah.
- [72:53]
Patrick
I'm curious as to how he thinks we would have this same. Whoa.
- [72:59]
Joe Scales
So if they have. Let's say they have three kings and ace, deuce, they have the same low as us.
- [73:10]
Patrick
I'm following.
- [73:12]
Joe Scales
And they have three kings. So they get three quarters of the pot and we get a quarter.
- [73:18]
Patrick
Highly unlikely that they have the other two kings, right? No. Maybe. Yes.
- [73:26]
Joe Scales
I mean, they could have.
- [73:26]
Patrick
There.
- [73:27]
Joe Scales
They could have the other two kings. They could have the other two fives or.
- [73:30]
Patrick
See, that's where I'm at. I'm thinking that they can have threes, two fives.
- [73:35]
Joe Scales
Yeah.
- [73:37]
Patrick
But they could also have ace, deuce, and that would take care of it, too. So. Yeah.
- [73:41]
Joe Scales
All right.
- [73:41]
Patrick
I'm following along. I mean, I. I don't. A four comes out. We're in great shape, right?
- [73:50]
Joe Scales
Yeah. Yeah.
- [73:52]
Patrick
Any other lower card than an 8? We're still. Other than his voice in his head, Oscar's voice, telling him that he's gonna get quartered, we're probably. At this point, I think we.
- [74:02]
Eric Morris
We lose the high.
- [74:03]
Patrick
I think. I think that we're beat on the
- [74:06]
Joe Scales
hive for sure at this point. Yeah. If a 4 comes, then we feel pretty good about the possibility of scooping if they also have ace deuce, then we are just splitting at that point. So the question is, are you calling off with the chance of getting quartered when really you're. You're hoping to get half the pot if a 4 comes? So are you. Are. Do you find a fold here or are you calling anyway?
- [74:42]
Patrick
I'm calling. I'll take half the pot.
- [74:47]
Joe Scales
Yeah, honestly, I'm. I'm calling. I'm calling it off here every day. If, if we get quartered, we get quartered, we still have the chance to scoop. We're getting a great price to call.
- [74:59]
Eric Morris
Yeah.
- [75:00]
Patrick
Here's the other thing too, is I haven't done the full math in my head, but even quarter of this pot is probably pretty close to what we're left with anyways, so. So we started with 325.
- [75:14]
Joe Scales
The. The pot before he raised the pot was what, 472. 72. He basically is putting in 173 and we would have to put in 173. So it's 173, not quite 350. So 472. Just round it. Just round it. Say it's. It's. Basically, it's a little more than 800. So we'll just round it to 100 and say a quarter of 800 would be 200. So we would end up losing somewhere around 125 bucks.
- [75:48]
Patrick
Right. But tell me if this is crazy thinking, but it's. Let's just round it. If it is 200, if we get quartered, it's still more than what we would be left with now at 173 and change or whatever it is.
- [76:00]
Joe Scales
It's more than we would be left with. Yes.
- [76:02]
Patrick
Yeah, I'm calling.
- [76:04]
Joe Scales
We still. We still lose money either way, but we also still have the opportunity to win at least half the pot, which would be much better. So we. We. I. We can't fold.
- [76:18]
Eric Morris
Yeah.
- [76:19]
Joe Scales
Oscar says I tanked and then talked myself into a call. The river is the four of clubs. So the board runs up with the three of spades, five of diamonds, king of clubs, eight of spades, four of clubs. We make the nut low. Villain shows ace of diamonds, two of clubs, five of spades, five of hearts. So he had flopped a set with the same nut low draw as us, but we end up chopping the whole pot.
- [76:56]
Patrick
Yep.
- [76:58]
Joe Scales
Middle position player was visibly frustrated after the hand. And for good reason, he says, because he went from winning three quarters of the pot to splitting it with splitting the whole pot with me. So his question was this a Bad call for me, knowing that I get quartered without the four on the river. And I would say that is being results oriented.
- [77:25]
Patrick
That is 100 being results oriented. And no, I don't think it's a bad call whatsoever. And let the villain be pissed. You know what? Yeah, I mean, we. We talked about it right before this. But again, even if you get quartered there, let's say the four doesn't come out, you get quartered, which you. You know, we're kind of thinking it might be the chance, which, you know, we. It was true. You're still walking away with what you would have been left with if you folded. You give the villain satisfaction, and, you know, it is what it is, but it's a good. It's a very profitable call. How about that? Is that a term? Can I coin that? Can I trademark that?
- [78:00]
Joe Scales
Yeah, there you go.
- [78:03]
Patrick
It's a profitable call. Well done, Oscar.
- [78:08]
Joe Scales
Even if you. More to your point, even if you end up. If you end up folding there, then it's a hundred times worse because you're. You're literally throwing $27 down the drain. If you. If you fold there, you are just flushing it down. You're like, I hate money, So you have to call there. So, no, I don't think it was bad. Even though you have the potential of losing $125 from where you started, you're still winning money from where you were when you made the call.
- [78:58]
Patrick
Yep.
- [78:58]
Joe Scales
So. So at that point, yeah, you have to. You have to do it. So definitely not a bad call. He's upset because he lost basically a quarter of the pot from what he would have had, had that four not come. That's not your fault. That's just the way the cards go.
- [79:23]
Patrick
And that's the way the cookie crumbles.
- [79:26]
Joe Scales
No, not again.
- [79:29]
Host 1 (Female Co-Host)
I couldn't resist.
- [79:31]
Eric Morris
God, what a great movie.
- [79:32]
Patrick
Bruce Almighty. Anyone hadn't seen it go see. It's very, very comical.
- [79:37]
Eric Morris
The number could.
- [79:39]
Joe Scales
The last time. Wait, the last time you said that. The number of that's the way the cookie crumbles. Memes that were in the discord afterward is incredible. So I look forward to seeing those again.
- [79:50]
Patrick
Bring it on.
- [79:58]
Joe Scales
There you go. I mean, I think. I don't think you played any part of this wrong. I think you played it exactly the way you should have. And sometimes people are going to be upset. It's just the way it is. Everybody, when. I mean, we're talking about real money here, people have high emotions. But if he really. If he really stepped back and thought about that, then he would know that you had to make that call, period. So, well done. Well done, Oscar with a K. And if anyone has a hand of the week that they would like to know how Patrick and I would play it, send it to podcastnetmagazine.com Patrick, now you've. You've gotten this under your belt. Hopefully we get that other and we'll be able to play. That
- [80:54]
Patrick
sounds good. We'll be here next week, my friend.
- [81:01]
Eric Morris
From the flop to the turn we play it.
- [81:14]
Joe Scales
I saw there's a new season of Ted Lasso coming. My favorite scene of that entire show is this darts scene, and that's in season one. If you haven't seen it, you can look it up on YouTube, but I'll try to put a link in the show description as well. But basically, Ted's in the bar and he's being underestimated. Again, he's being laughed at a little bit. And before he absolutely destroys Rupert in darts, he talks about a quote, be curious, not judgmental. And curiosity starts with questions. The people Ted talks about in that scene never asked questions. They just decided who he was. They saw a guy with a mustache and some funny sayings and assumed this guy must be a joke. He doesn't belong, and he can't possibly know what he's doing right. Nobody asked if he played darts. If they had, they would have learned he'd been playing every Sunday with his dad growing up. And poker players, we do this exact same thing all the time. We sit down at a table, and within orbit one, we've already built an entire story about every player there. That guy's a nit. She's bad, He's a maniac. And sometimes those reads are useful. Poker actually requires us to categorize people pretty quickly. The mistake is when we stop asking questions after that first read. Because poker hands aren't solved by the labels we put on people. They're more likely to be solved by curiosity. You should constantly be asking questions, not necessarily out loud, although sometimes that helps too. But internally, we should be asking, why did they size that bet that way? Why did they limp there? Why are they suddenly talking more? Why'd they stop talking? Even better, ask questions about yourself, too. Why am I rushing this decision? Why do I play differently when I'm stuck? Curiosity is where growth happens. Judgment is where growth stops. The second you have your opponent all figured out, you stop observing. And poker tends to punish people who stop observing. Maybe the nit isn't a nit. Maybe they're card dead. Maybe the bad player is setting a trap. Maybe that quiet player is the sharpest person at the table. Or that guy drinking beers and telling jokes. Maybe they're paying attention way more than you realize. Questions keep your reads flexible and allow adjustment. Questions also keep your ego in check. That goes way beyond poker, too. Life right now feels like one giant rush to judgment. We scroll social media and decide who somebody is within 15 seconds. We stop asking questions because we're so busy preparing our response. But asking questions? That changes everything. The older I get, the more I realize people make a lot more sense once you know the rest of the story. And by the way, asking questions, that doesn't mean you always agree. Curiosity doesn't mean abandoning reeds. It means being willing to update them. But sometimes the NIT really is a knit. In order to keep getting better, we have to keep gathering information, though, instead of protecting our first impression. That's the skill. And honestly, that might be one of the biggest edges in poker, the willingness to keep asking questions after everybody else thinks they already know the answer. Pay attention to how quickly you label people at the poker table, at work, everywhere. Then keep asking questions, because curiosity makes you a better poker player. And it usually makes you a better human, too. Barbecue sauce that's today's one outer and that's today's show. I'll see you next week, a team. And until then, I'll see you at the tables.
- [85:59]
Eric Morris
The Antiop Podcast is a production of anyupmagazine.com contact the show at podcastsnyupmagazine.com or call the show at 540-3239-7741. If you'd like to advertise, send an email to editor@anyupmagazine.com.