transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] Dreamed scenario where I come across Howley's 1989 WSOP main event bracelet in a thrift store here in Madison, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:
[00:05] It's the PokerNews Podcast.
Speaker 1:
[00:09] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 958 of the PokerNews Podcast presented by 888 Poker. I'm Chad Holloway, joined once again by Ben Ludlow and Mike Holtz at Level 9 Studio in Las Vegas. Gentlemen, we are back for a good episode. We're gonna talk about a potentially stolen trophy, a mystery surrounding it involving Etay, one that I helped discover thanks to eBay. We're gonna talk about WrestleMania weekend in Las Vegas, including the Blez getting together with The Miz. It was the 15th anniversary of Black Friday. We'll talk about that as well as winners from the US. Poker Open at PokerGo Studio and some other winners. And then of course, my trip to the Irish Poker Open. But Ben, Mike, it's been a little bit of a break here. I was at WSOP Europe as well where I had some great guests. So it's been a while since the three of us got together.
Speaker 3:
[00:56] Yes, sir. Good to see you. Good to see you. Also, Etay and eBay kind of rhyme just saying.
Speaker 2:
[01:03] But he's not a rapper.
Speaker 3:
[01:04] Yeah, I'm not a rapper. I'm not a rapper. But yeah, we're already cooking. First episode back, we're already making great jokes.
Speaker 2:
[01:11] I'm smelling the ground beef and it's about to turn into a cheeseburger.
Speaker 3:
[01:14] Oh, I don't know what that means. But I'm pretending like I do.
Speaker 2:
[01:17] It's provocative.
Speaker 1:
[01:19] Let's talk about Etay. Esther Taylor, of course. So this was last year, late last year sometime, where I got a message from somebody saying, hey, have you seen this listing on eBay? It is for a WPT win trophy. I think it was going like 1200 or $1,000. It was listed for right now. It's up, it's live for $600. And it is from the 3K eight game mix tournament from the 2022 WPT World Championship at the win. So of course, go back, reverse engineer it, find out that this was won by Esther Taylor. She took down this tournament back in 2022. So over three years ago, 131 runners defeated Benny Glaser heads up for 100K even and gets a sweet trophy from the win. I don't know if you've seen these trophies. They are pretty nice. And I'm always curious when I see a bracelet or a trophy for sale, like what's the story here? Right? Like, yeah, are they broke? Are they busto? Are they selling their collection? Etay doesn't strike me as that type of person.
Speaker 3:
[02:20] Yeah, definitely not. Uh, must be stolen. Must be stolen, right?
Speaker 2:
[02:25] So then Chad, you obviously contact her and she says...
Speaker 1:
[02:29] Well, first off, I contacted the seller, right? I reached out on eBay and said, you know, what's going on with this? What's the story? Like, I don't, you know, you act like you're gonna buy it. You don't come out swinging. And so I said... He's a journalist, folks.
Speaker 3:
[02:43] He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1:
[02:44] I said, hi there, I am interested in this for a poker collection, but was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about it. Did you win it? If not, how did you acquire it? Very cool piece. Thanks for your time. And the message back from the seller was, I picked it up at a pawn shop in Vegas a while back. Okay. Left it at that. I didn't follow up with any more messages. So then I reached out to Etay on Twitter. You know, we got a good relationship. And I said, hey, are you like, what's, what's the story here? She had no idea. She had no idea that this trophy was up for sale and that it was missing from her house. She said that she had did like a cross-country move a couple of years back. And so it was all it was packed away. And then next thing she knows, boom, it's up on eBay for sale. Well, yeah, like has to be stolen, right?
Speaker 2:
[03:30] Yeah, that sounds like a stolen trophy. It sounds like someone got the trophy and it made its way to eBay. Will Etay buy it? Find out on the next episode of the PokerNews Podcast.
Speaker 3:
[03:43] Well, yeah, I mean, has she ever had it? I guess that's the like, unless someone like legit broke into her house, I wonder if she ever had the trophy, because I know that there have been moments like GPI Awards a few years ago. I stole Matt Savage's industry person of the year trophy and had it for a while before he noticed it was gone. So I don't know. I, yeah, maybe. I don't know. But when you see like a bracelet listed and stuff though, yeah, I always assume everyone's busto, but I can confirm that Etay is not busto. So, you know, she's not pawning off. Unless it was like, you know, a tough moment a few years ago, she didn't tell anyone about and she's like, deep in the sauce, but no, no, she's not.
Speaker 2:
[04:22] Well, you talked to her and she said?
Speaker 1:
[04:25] Well, she said initially, what in the world? Legit have no idea how that would end up on eBay. I've moved houses since then and had movers, but don't think there's any way they would just take that and put it on eBay. How do I further investigate this? So I said, well, I messaged the guy. Here's what he said. She said, it must have gotten taken from my home in Pennsylvania. She wondered, is there any way that the win accidentally made two, right? And then just gave one away. She said that she got in contact with him. And well, actually, I'll let her tell her you in her own words, because when I was in Vegas recently, I was at the charity series of Poker. She was there and we finally connected in person instead of over DMs. And I'm like, what's the latest on this potentially stolen trophy? Check it out. I saw you down in Arizona. You got to play your first ever MSPT event.
Speaker 4:
[05:12] Phenomenal. Yeah, I loved everything about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[05:15] Had you been to Talking Stick before?
Speaker 4:
[05:17] That was my first time at Talking Stick, although it has been on my radar for many years. It's kind of a mecca of mixed game, cash games. And yeah, now they're running tournaments and they got some potential there.
Speaker 1:
[05:28] I agree.
Speaker 4:
[05:29] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[05:29] I was going to catch up with you because I actually DM'd you about a month ago now. There was a trophy on eBay that somebody brought to my attention. It was a mixed game, 2200 win trophy from 2022 during the WPT World Championship. I did my research and I was like, that's the one you won. So I reached out and I said, what's going on?
Speaker 4:
[05:48] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[05:48] And you didn't know about it.
Speaker 4:
[05:50] No. But then I discovered that my trophy was missing and all of a sudden it was on eBay. So we actually both kind of not, we both approached it from different messaging on eBay. And he gave us two totally different responses.
Speaker 1:
[06:05] He told me that he got it at a pawn store months ago, the guy who was selling it on eBay.
Speaker 4:
[06:10] And he told me he found it at a Goodwill in PA. So now we have to go further into, I'm going to have to go further into research to try to get it back. But if you see this, please just give it back. I just want the trophy back. It's, you know, whatever. No questions asked.
Speaker 1:
[06:27] Do you have any idea how it fell out of your possession, so to speak?
Speaker 4:
[06:30] You know, I moved and so maybe somewhere through the moving or the movers. I don't want to make any accusations, but there were opportunities to take it out of my house. But the last time I saw it, it was sitting in my house on the, you know, the trophy stand. So.
Speaker 1:
[06:45] Well, I hope it gets back to its rightful owner. I'm sure it won't be the last trophy that you win. Might win once a night.
Speaker 4:
[06:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:
[06:54] Well, keep me updated on that Saganet. If I can do anything to help you, let me know.
Speaker 4:
[06:58] Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:
[06:59] All right, so there you have it. And Etay's own words. I did message her yesterday before we were filming to say, what's the latest on this? She said, no update. I'm actually golfing with my detective buddy this week and was going to see what I should do going forward. She said, as you've seen the video, she had contacted the seller who said he picked it up at a Goodwill. So conflicting stories between what he told me and told her. And it's a mystery. I wish we had a resolution. I'm going to keep on top of it. Etay is going to keep me in the loop. But I don't know, what should she do in this situation? It's 600 bucks. She could buy it back. But let's be honest, it's not worth 600 bucks.
Speaker 3:
[07:34] My hope, I've been watching this show, Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple, where Jon Hamm gets fired from being a hedge fund guy and then just goes around robbing all of his rich friends in his neighborhood and selling their shit that they don't notice. So if you're listening to this out there and you've got trophies, I don't have any, so I don't need to check on anything. Go check and see if your trophies or bracelets or rings are missing, because maybe this is a broader conspiracy. That's my hope that this turns into a massive story. And if there's like a cat burglar going around robbing like very inexpensive pieces of poker memorabilia, that would be dope.
Speaker 2:
[08:07] Yesterday morning, I was going to say this morning, but it was yesterday morning, I looked at my trophy case, I noticed my bracelet and both my Player of the Year rings were missing. And then I realized that they were sitting in the back seat of my car inside of my pink Run the Jewels shoes that I had sitting up here a month ago. And I just left them in a 150 degree car in the just inside of a shoe.
Speaker 3:
[08:27] That is a good place to store them.
Speaker 2:
[08:29] If I was Etay, I would go through my shoes, I would just make sure maybe there's a win trophy somewhere in there, who knows?
Speaker 1:
[08:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[08:36] But anyway, let us know if you're missing some stuff and we can start kind of like an Ocean's Eleven style investigation, whatever, into a broader robbery conspiracy of poker memorabilia.
Speaker 2:
[08:47] Sure.
Speaker 1:
[08:48] There's been some stories I've done over the years about missing poker memorabilia. One of them, famous one, was you remember Chris Moneymaker in 2003 when he won the main event?
Speaker 2:
[08:56] No, who's that?
Speaker 1:
[08:57] He was wearing those Oakley sunglasses. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[09:00] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[09:01] You picture them. Those went missing, right? The night after he won or he won, celebrate, whatever, those are long gone. And then Hellmuth.
Speaker 3:
[09:08] Well, I've lost about 18,000 pairs of sunglasses in my day, so maybe he just lost them and got drunk. Yeah, sorry, Hellmuth?
Speaker 1:
[09:16] Yeah, Phil Hellmuth's 1989 World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet, his first ever bracelet. He can account for all other 16. He gifts them to family members and this and that, but he does not know what happened to his 1989 World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet.
Speaker 2:
[09:29] You know what? It's probably somewhere around where he lost his dignity. I'd say, look wherever that is.
Speaker 1:
[09:36] You're talking about Madison, Wisconsin, because that's where he lived. Oh, there's no dignity there. It's where I live. So like, you know how I go to thrift stores all the time. I have been keeping an eye open, and a dream scenario where I come across how these 1989 WSOP main event bracelet and a thrift store here in Madison, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:
[09:54] That would be a sick story.
Speaker 3:
[09:55] That would be a good one. There was some golfer, I can't remember now, who either lost the Scottish Open or British Open Cup. The night they won it and they were out drinking, and it just got stolen at a bar, and it's like a 200 year old trophy and has never been found or something like that.
Speaker 2:
[10:10] It's a suck shorty.
Speaker 3:
[10:11] At least this is not some heirloom of poker history that's been passed down for hundreds of years. It's just a little win trophy, which there are so many of. I still don't have one, I'd like one. So maybe I'll buy, you know what, maybe I'll just buy Etay's and gift it back to her, and she can buy it from me for charity and I'll just keep the money.
Speaker 2:
[10:31] There you go. That sounds great.
Speaker 3:
[10:33] For the kids. For the kids.
Speaker 2:
[10:35] It's for the children.
Speaker 3:
[10:36] It's for the kids, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[10:37] It was a big weekend in Las Vegas, WrestleMania, WWE wrestling. I seen all sorts of people at the event at the football stadium. I did watch a couple matches on TV from here, but then I seen a video on social media involving Jared Bleznick, The Blez, who met up with The Miz. The Miz is a famous wrestler, been around a very long time, in which they talked about sports cards, and The Miz was flabbergasted basically to learn that The Blez had bought a sports card for a million dollars, ended up selling it for 1.5 million. Just kind of astonished that Jared Bleznick is a millionaire. But did you guys see the story, and what did you think of WrestleMania Weekend in Las Vegas? And also, what do you think about fucking $1.5 million for a sports card?
Speaker 3:
[11:24] Well, first of all, it was a big weekend in Las Vegas, because it was the first weekend of Phish's three-weekend run at the Sphere. I happened to go to the first show, and our producer Adam Pyken was at several shows too, and I just want to let you know it was life-changing and magical as always. The song where it goes, That was my favorite one. That was about my 50th Phish show. Anyway, WrestleMania, yeah, sure. People wrestling, whatever. No, I did see The Miz. He kind of was looking like Cody Rhodes. When I first saw the video, I thought it was Cody Rhodes. But, you know, black, Superfactor, one of one, Wemby for a milli, that seems like a steal. Yeah, like a milli, that was it. I remember the Luka Logo Man, you know, NTRPA sold for like 4.7 million. That was the height of the sports card thing, you know, three or four years ago. But when I heard it was only a mil for that one of one Wemby, that was my reaction. But, you know, I know ball, so.
Speaker 2:
[12:21] No, I thought it was one and a half. I thought Bleznick selling it for one and a half mil. I mean, obviously, the guy is super sharp. It's a warts card, so he knows more than we do. But that's shocking to me. I think Victor Roman Yama has the potential to be the greatest player of all time.
Speaker 1:
[12:33] I'm going to sound so ignorant and probably piss off half the audience. I had no idea who Victor Wemba Nyan Yama was.
Speaker 2:
[12:39] I don't think our audience is NBA based, Chad. Yeah, I could be wrong.
Speaker 3:
[12:44] Maybe we're the ones pissing off the audience.
Speaker 2:
[12:46] I would say that's more accurate.
Speaker 1:
[12:47] Fifteen years ago, this month was the anniversary of Black Friday. The US government seized hundreds of millions of dollars in player funds, shut down the biggest online poker sites worldwide. There was a domain that popped up when you tried to log in. Just curious, where were you guys when Black Friday happened? Did it impact your life? What's your Black Friday story?
Speaker 3:
[13:10] I'll just say first, I remember when it happened. I was like, well, the government can't get any worse than it is right now. And boy, was I wrong. I was sitting in room C of Ky Gamma Epsilon at Dartmouth College trying to log on to PokerStars. I was trying to go for Supernova Elite on Sit and Goes. So I just moved all my money off. I mean, when I say all my money, I had like three grand to my name in total off of Full Tilt onto PokerStars. And I tried to log on to PokerStars and I got the thing. And I was like, this isn't good. And then I got a bunch of messages and then it was all over. But I got lucky that I moved my, I mean, three grand at that time was all the money in the world to me. You know, so I got lucky that I moved it off Full Tilt and didn't lose anything, got it all back from PokerStars. But yeah, and then I had to like focus on school and that was what caused me, I was just going to sit at my dad's house in Denver that summer and play online sit and goes and then I had to get a fucking job at PokerNews that summer instead.
Speaker 2:
[14:10] Wow.
Speaker 3:
[14:11] That was what that was. Literally Black Friday led me to meeting Chad and working at PokerNews in 2011. So, you know, I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but here we are, baby.
Speaker 2:
[14:21] My condolences.
Speaker 1:
[14:23] Mike, what about you? Were you in the online poker streets back then?
Speaker 2:
[14:26] Yeah. So I played. I was playing on my mom's under my mom's name because I wasn't of legal age and I had a PokerStars a full tilt account. And I just remember like I was out of school at that point. It was like right after my right after high school. And I had deposited maybe like 100 bucks and I ran it up. I won like a dollar. We chopped actually. It was a dollar tournament. We ended up chopping like eight of us for like 3K. I got 3K or something. I was like, I'm the greatest fucking poker player. Hawaii. I was like, this is it. I'm the greatest. Like who's better than me? Right. And I proceeded to buy an ounce of weed for $400. I withdrew it, got my mom to give me $400. I bought an ounce of weed and I stayed in my bedroom for a month before Black Friday, just smoking weed and blowing money online. And then I had like $700 left.
Speaker 3:
[15:14] I'm glad to see so much has changed in 15 years.
Speaker 2:
[15:16] Exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1:
[15:18] There's nothing changed.
Speaker 2:
[15:19] Literally. And I logged in the account and so a big FBI thing and I go, holy fuck, they found out I was using my mom's account. God damn it.
Speaker 3:
[15:28] They logged in to my camera, saw I bought the weed and went on my mom's account. This is about me.
Speaker 2:
[15:33] Exactly. And then I went on 2 Plus 2 and I was like, damn, this is crazy. What's going to happen to the money in my account? And yeah, I guess my mom got a check like eight years later for rucking 600 bucks.
Speaker 3:
[15:45] Well, I remember the craziest one was Blair Hinkle, who still plays and is a buddy of mine. He won like 1.3 million on Full Tilt, like a week before Black Friday. And I don't think, I mean, I think it took like six or seven or eight, six or seven or eight or nine years or something to get it all back. I don't know. It took a long time. But I remember then, what was it? PokerStars bought Full Tilt and that was sort of like after all the controversy. Yeah, the catalyst to pay. I don't know if everyone got, you know, a hundred cents on the dollar, but.
Speaker 2:
[16:15] I think they did, right?
Speaker 3:
[16:16] Yeah, pretty close to it at least, so.
Speaker 1:
[16:19] There was a PokerNews video essay looking back on Black Friday. I will include that in the show notes. If you're not familiar with Black Friday, if that was before your time. But obviously, one of the biggest events in the history of poker, I was very early on in my PokerNews career, didn't really understand the gravity of it at the time. I had played on PokerStars a little bit, trying to play these $33 buy-ins to win a package to like E.P.T.s, and that never came to fruition, so.
Speaker 3:
[16:44] I was like, all my biggest online poker scores, like I had a deep run in the Sunday Mill once for a bunch, but besides that was all like, I was desperate to go play like live WPT events or live events, and I remember getting second in like three in a row to go play Bay 101 for like three or four K each and being devastated because I was like, I'm going to rally this up to a WPT, I'm going to win, I'm going to be on TV, I'm going to fucking be the best. And then I was working with Chad, you know. No, it was weird because like that was the, I feel like I never was a part of the industry when online poker was like in its glory days. So I feel like almost 100% of my real poker life has been post Black Friday. So I wish that, you know, I don't know, I had been born a little earlier so I could have really dug into the glory days. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2:
[17:33] Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:
[17:34] I mean, I felt the same way about just poker in general. Like I turned 21 in December 2003 and it's like, man, if I was a little bit before or in poker, a little bit harder, that poker boom era, you know, could have been ripe for the taking. But instead I ended up getting in it. The poker industry, 2009, 10, 11 in that range.
Speaker 3:
[17:52] So that all worked out for us.
Speaker 2:
[17:53] I got in 2021, brothers, you guys were early to me at the hell. Yeah, I wish I got in 2010.
Speaker 3:
[18:01] Yeah, but you're, you're, you know, you're different. You're a soup slut.
Speaker 1:
[18:06] Let's talk about recent tournament winners presented by 888 Poker. We're going to dive into the US. Poker Open taking place at PokerGo Studio. Ten events right now, eight of them have crowned winners. So we'll have to wrap it up next week. But there's some big storylines coming out of it. Alex Foxen and Kristen Foxen both captured titles. Cherish Andrews and boyfriend Brock Wilson both captured titles. So couples performing well. Brock Wilson has won two titles, has been crushing it. But Jeremy Alsmus, well, if he hasn't won a title, has three runner up finishes, which is really impressive. Have you guys been keeping an eye on the US poker open or hearing some of these storylines coming out of Poker and Go Studio?
Speaker 2:
[18:44] It's interesting because two couples won and if Jeremy Alsmus and I won, then it would be three couples.
Speaker 3:
[18:48] That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really, who's the, anyway, I don't want to get into details with that. Yeah, yeah, if your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife's in poker, they're going to win. But I was hoping a little bit for, there have been some players that I hadn't seen before and I have been watching just because like I've done almost zero playing of poker in the last three and a half months and I'm trying to get sharp for the World Series again. But I don't know, I was hoping for a little bit more new blood. I know our boy King Hi Pen, he- Queen Hi Pon.
Speaker 2:
[19:21] I don't have a pronounce his name.
Speaker 3:
[19:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, what a G, Dr. Jack, they call him, I think, right?
Speaker 2:
[19:25] Do they call him Dr. Jack?
Speaker 3:
[19:26] I think that's, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[19:27] Anyway, so I've always wondered his name online, I battled against him for Player of the Year. I battled against him online for so many fucking years. His name is 011pokerdr. So I always called him Poker Doctor.
Speaker 3:
[19:40] I think he was or is a doctor.
Speaker 2:
[19:42] God, that's so cool.
Speaker 3:
[19:43] Or maybe-
Speaker 1:
[19:44] We gotta get him on the show.
Speaker 3:
[19:45] Yeah, we gotta get him on the show. But I didn't, so I watched it and I know he got heads up with another elderly gentleman for one of the titles.
Speaker 2:
[19:54] Petey? Yeah, he's like 44, dude. No, I don't know how old Petey is.
Speaker 3:
[20:00] Bad bluff. No, he's 44. We gotta talk to this guy.
Speaker 2:
[20:04] Anyway, Petey beat him heads up.
Speaker 3:
[20:05] Yeah, Petey beat him heads up. But dude, our boy King Hi has gotten, had like a ridiculous year already. Yeah, like nine PGT final table, like qualifying final tables. I did not realize that he was crushing that hard, but-
Speaker 2:
[20:18] He has played poker every day for as long as I have played poker online. He's there every day. He never misses. I've, since 2020, I can't remember being in a tournament that he wasn't in on WSB. Like the man grinds, he plays a different style and everyone, he does really, really well. It's super interesting because it's interesting to watch the poker go tables and see people not figured out a style at all. And it's like, I've played against him a bunch. I'm like, oh, I know all this stuff.
Speaker 3:
[20:51] And yet here you are not at the US Poker Open grinding with the legends.
Speaker 2:
[20:56] Yeah, well, can you do? I won a bunch of money yesterday. I'll be fine.
Speaker 3:
[20:58] Yeah, I know. You should blow it all at the studios.
Speaker 2:
[21:00] I will not do that.
Speaker 3:
[21:01] Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:
[21:02] I will not. Oh, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 3:
[21:03] That was a trap in the past.
Speaker 1:
[21:05] As I mentioned, it's been eight events in the books right now out of 10. Joao Simao won the most recent event, number eight, 292K. So the leaderboard, looking at it right now, it's kind of a two-man race. It's Brock Wilson, thanks to his two wins out in front, 495 PGT points ahead of Jeremy Osmas with 399, thanks to his three runner-up finishes. And then you got Clem and Dang with 284. So it's really probably going to come down to Brock Wilson, Jeremy Osmas, depending on those last two events. The US Poker Open dates back to 2018. They didn't do an addition in 2020 because of the pandemic. So whoever wins this will become the seventh US Poker Open champion. Do you guys know, can you name any of the other six?
Speaker 3:
[21:51] Definitely.
Speaker 2:
[21:53] Wait, what's the question again?
Speaker 3:
[21:55] The whole series.
Speaker 1:
[21:56] Yeah, like who's the points leader, the US Poker Open overall champion? There's actually, so there's been six additions before.
Speaker 3:
[22:03] No.
Speaker 1:
[22:04] He did not.
Speaker 2:
[22:05] Oh, this is probably Aram.
Speaker 3:
[22:07] Yeah, I was going to say Aram.
Speaker 2:
[22:08] Aram's going to be in 2024.
Speaker 1:
[22:10] That's right.
Speaker 2:
[22:11] Sam Savile.
Speaker 1:
[22:13] Nope, not Sam Savile. But speaking of Sam though, real quick, an interesting bit of trivia was when Alex Foxen, Well, no, but Alex Foxen, Alex Foxen won his title, his, the series title here, I think it was his 13th Poker Go Tour title. And that ties him overall for most overall with Sam Savile. So interesting fact there. Martin Zimani won it in 2013, Sean Winter in 2023, 2023, Sean Winter in 2022.
Speaker 3:
[22:46] I would say D Peters probably won one of them.
Speaker 1:
[22:48] Yeah, D Peters won in 2019 and 2021. So technically back to back because there was no 2020. And then the inaugural champ back in 2018 was Steven Chidwick.
Speaker 4:
[22:59] Wow.
Speaker 3:
[22:59] I've heard of that guy.
Speaker 1:
[23:01] We'll keep an eye on that race and recap the full thing next week. I do want to give a congratulations to a friend of mine. She's worked for PokerNews before, well known in the poker industry, and that is poker photographer Katerina Lukina, who is married to poker pro Chris Conrad. She took down a $500 Best Bet Jacksonville event for over $42,000. I've played with Katerina. I've worked with her. She is an amazing player. She is obviously having results. And this is just one of the good people on the poker media side of things, doing good things on the player side of things. Ben, I'm pretty sure you're familiar with Katerina.
Speaker 3:
[23:37] Yeah, yeah. And Chris. And they're both really, you know, nice, supportive, good people and they grind. I mean, those two play a lot online. Chris has been playing online forever. And, you know, I think since she married Chris, she's worked really hard at poker and it's showing. I mean, I did beat her heads up in a sit and go on the Run Good Cruise in 2021. That's, you know, people don't talk about that.
Speaker 2:
[24:00] I've never heard that.
Speaker 3:
[24:01] Cause it's not talked about, you know, enough at least. In my circles, it's not talked about. So I guess anyway, but no, congratulations to Kat. She's like one of the sweetest people ever. She's always like really genuinely interested in people. And, you know, I appreciate that. So, yeah, glad to see the, glad to see good people make getting results. And, you know, it's always really nice. Like there's this weird, you know, industry versus player thing. And obviously everyone in the industry likes to play. And most, almost everyone in the industry wanted to be a player or tried to be, or whatever it is. So whenever someone in, like, you know, on the Poker News side, whether they're a reporter, whether they're working in the industry has success, especially in tournaments. I'm all here for it and very supportive of that.
Speaker 2:
[24:46] I didn't know she played like that. Honestly, I play against Chris all the time online. He's a crusher, super good. We play all the time. We talk sometimes about hands and stuff, but Katerina, I had no idea that she was that good at poker. I didn't know she played online. I'm sure I battled against her a bunch too, but nice person. I played against her a few times at WSOP, like adjacent events and everything. And yeah, great person, glad for her. Good for her. Good for Chris. Awesome. See the good people get one.
Speaker 3:
[25:12] Yeah. Where was this again?
Speaker 1:
[25:14] That was at Best Bet Jacksonville.
Speaker 3:
[25:15] Oh, nice. Okay. I think they live in Jacksonville, so hometown tournament.
Speaker 2:
[25:18] Sick. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[25:20] No, but before I talk about the Irish Poker Open, I do want to mention our plans for the summer. We're just over a month away from the 2026 WSOP, which is just crazy for us on the podcast. The plan is to do three episodes a week, two of which are going to be in this format with myself, Mike and Ben when playing doesn't conflict or schedules allow. I think the plan is to do episodes on Tuesdays and Saturdays. So that will kind of be the regular show. And then in between on Thursdays, I will be doing a episode that is devoted more to a one-on-one kind of sit down in-depth interviews with some poker players who will be in town. So looking forward to that. That could obviously change, but right now that's the loose plan. Mike, Ben, are you excited for, are you ready for the WSOP just a month away?
Speaker 3:
[26:12] Hell yeah.
Speaker 2:
[26:13] Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:
[26:13] No, I'm very excited. I was expected to be a little busier this summer with some other stuff, but my movie project I mentioned got moved back to August. So I'm kind of in limbo and I'm ready to fricking grind. I got back into the online streets this weekend. I thought I did really great. I got 66 in this tournament of 10,000 people and called Mike and was all excited about it. I got 32nd in that, then I got 32nd in this. He just fucking cucked me right away.
Speaker 2:
[26:39] I didn't mean to.
Speaker 3:
[26:39] He's like, oh yeah, I punted though. I'm just sitting here like, I'm so proud of myself. He was just like, you suck, I'm better.
Speaker 2:
[26:46] I didn't say that.
Speaker 3:
[26:46] He said all of those things verbatim. But yeah, I'm really excited. I'm going to play a bunch and podcast and playing all summer. I'm excited to have somewhere to go every day.
Speaker 2:
[26:57] Oh my God. Oh my God. This is the least excited I've ever been for a WSOP, honestly.
Speaker 3:
[27:02] Why?
Speaker 2:
[27:03] I don't know. I just am not as excited. Like I might. I always like right around now I'm like, oh my God, I can't wait to get in there and fuck some of these cats up. You know what I mean? Come in there and see all the people's high five the people's. We got a little PokerNews Podcast booth. Come say hi. Always a great time. This year I'm like, man, I kind of want to play online a little bit more.
Speaker 3:
[27:22] Oh, you play online? Who would have thought?
Speaker 2:
[27:24] Yeah, I just always end up.
Speaker 3:
[27:26] You can leave the house.
Speaker 2:
[27:27] I never play online during the summer and every time I regret it. Every time I'm like, oh, I had another break even summer where I didn't win a bracelet. It's like, oh great, let me go back to online.
Speaker 3:
[27:37] But if you don't play a lot of bracelet events, you can't win them.
Speaker 2:
[27:41] Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3:
[27:43] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[27:43] So I'm going to be there. Like, what are you going to do? Exactly.
Speaker 3:
[27:45] That's my boy, that's my boy.
Speaker 2:
[27:47] No, I'll be playing the aeroplane to the win. I'm a hundred percent going to. I always just play WSOP. I never in the summer have played another event except for once I played a double board on a pod event at MGM. I chop no big deal.
Speaker 3:
[27:58] You know, sure, definitely not a big deal. You're right.
Speaker 2:
[28:01] It was like 20K. I bet you'd like that right now. It'll buy.
Speaker 3:
[28:04] I would.
Speaker 2:
[28:05] I'd like 20K more. Um, pardon me, you know, pardon my chest. I don't know what's happening. We're going to go to the WSOP. We're going to run some things. We're going to do this stuff. We're going to play the games.
Speaker 3:
[28:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[28:15] It'd be great.
Speaker 1:
[28:17] I got a taste of the WSOP. I was in Prague for WSOP Europe where I did some episodes. I think we did six episodes in five days. Interviews with Sean Deeb, Martin Cabrell, Dan Cates. You can check all those out.
Speaker 2:
[28:29] Nightmare Blunt Rotation.
Speaker 1:
[28:34] Before that, I actually had the opportunity to stop over in Dublin, Ireland for my first ever visit to the Irish Open. This is a tournament that is very historic, dates back four decades. It's the second longest running poker series there is besides the WSOP. I had to go there and glad I did. It was amazingly fun, well run, a record breaking field of just over, I think, 5003 entries. It was 1150 euro main event, massive turnout. They did a five-way chop, ended up being Romania's Narciss Neluccu. I mean, I know I butchered that, 336,000 euros was just an awesome event. I'm going to show a video highlight to end this episode here in just a minute. But Mike, Ben, I'm telling you, next year we got to take the show on the road and get to the Irish Poker Open. It was a blast.
Speaker 3:
[29:23] I'm available probably.
Speaker 2:
[29:25] Yeah, I'm probably also available.
Speaker 3:
[29:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wasn't, I didn't have much FOMO about the World Series Poker era, but I had a lot of FOMO about Irish Poker Open for sure.
Speaker 2:
[29:35] Me too. All because of our reporting on the show has made me be like, man, I really want to go over there and get wasted, have a good crack with the bodies.
Speaker 1:
[29:44] Adventures from the Irish Open. Check it out. One of the things that's really impressive about the Irish Poker Open is just how vast this venue is, which I totally underestimated. Like this is the side spillover room that's behind me. Reminds me a lot of World Series of Poker, you know, how they have multiple rooms. This is pretty close to the same size as the main room, which I'm actually going to try to walk over to. But this is, like I said, like the side room spillover. But there's other little side rooms too, or like tables up on the balcony. So as you can see, just massive, lots of people here that I've run into. Brian Molesky, president of the major series of Poker the Tour, the MSPT in the United States, made the trip over here, caught up with him. Barry Carter, Global Poker Award winner for best Twitter account. Known him for years on social media, but finally got to meet him in person as well. A lot of old EPT crew that's here has been fun to catch up with. It's been a blast so far. As I mentioned, this is the spillover room. So we're leaving that, we're going to the main hall right here. So this is where the main event is currently taking place, the record breaking main event. Check this room out. It is just like a huge cavern. Really impressive stuff here at the Irish Poker Open. All right, behind me is the Irish Poker Open's famous The Crack Den, pronounced Crack Den. Let's go check it out. This is like a party central. It's pretty early here on a Saturday, like 6:30 p.m. right now. But you can see, pretty busy house. A bunch of people watching the game. There's a bar over there. They do all kinds of activities in here, from games, darts, video games, karaoke, contests, etc., etc. It's a lot of fun. This is a big part about the Irish Poker Open identity, the crack dead. It is worth all the hype. The main event proved to be a big one. Keep in mind, this is the 46th year that the Irish Open has taken place. It's the second longest tournament in history, besides the World Series of Poker. This year, 5,003 runners. That was a massive turnout. To put it in perspective, in 2022, they had 2,040 runners total. On day 1D this year, they had 2,037. So they equaled the field from four years ago in one flight. Tremendous turnout here. 4.8 million in the prize pool, nearly double. It was 517,000 euros going to the eventual winner. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be here because I have to leave to head to the World Series of Poker Europe. But some final thoughts on the Irish Open. It lives up to the hype. It was absolutely amazing. Great to see old work friends, to meet people in the industry I've never met in person before, like Barry Carter, to catch up with players, even nine high like a boss himself, Will Kassouf, who as of right now is somewhere in that field behind me, going relatively deep. So who knows? Catching up with the Bad Poker Podcast folks. I'm a poker podcaster. You're watching or listening to this, probably on the podcast. They're doing some great work here in the Irish poker community. Check out Dom and Chris and good luck to those guys on their adventure. Absolutely amazing. I got to walk around Dublin, hit up some comic stores, took in the sights. The Irish Poker Open is going international if you haven't heard. They're going to do stops in Marrakesh, Australia, and even the United States in 2027.
Speaker 5:
[33:47] Lovely to get to know you and fingers crossed we might have a little guineas together and get to know each other a little bit better.
Speaker 1:
[33:52] I'll see you in the crack then.
Speaker 5:
[33:53] Chad, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:
[33:54] You bet. Thank you.