Dead Money w/ Dan Arfin

Well the 2026 WSOP has come upon us, and everything has picked up right where it left off. I haven't played at the WSOP itself--there are much faster ways to kill yourself.

Instead, the European pros are continuing to do what they always do which is take an eternity to fold to a small bet. You can also spit, and hit an incompetent floor person. And lest we forget, always be wary of the random hero call in a massive spot by a recreational.

You talking to me???

Fuck tournaments. This is why.

I haven't played much poker recently. I've been wanting to, but not quite feeling it. And when that happens, the only thing to do is just sit out and wait for the burning desire to return like it always has and always will. May tends to be the calm before the storm for Las Vegas poker anyway. The WSOP is upon us in just a couple more weeks. More guests will be to follow in future episodes before that all kicks off, but I didn't want to just sit out of everything entirely. I have to record and talk to my therapists--aka anyone who listens to the show for even a single second. So this week I decided to touch on what my approach and state of mind to playing has always been, and why I think less is more.

But I've also been thinking more lately how much I can't stand nits. Not because of their play style. That's all well and good. I will never complain about an opponent who goes out of his way to make sure he isn't trying to make life hard for me. But their egos and their attitude. Oh my god. It's insufferable. There's that word again. It's become my new favorite. So I also talk about why they're so laughably unbearable to listen to, and I share a story about one as well.

Whether you play poker professionally, moderately seriously, or just for fun, we all recognize the game appeals to many people because of the social camaraderie. But if you're playing online a lot like Sank Desai, going from your secret poker cave back into the real world of play is not as seamless a change as one might envision.

I've known Sank probably a good 7 years by now. We've talked a lot of strategy and hand analysis, but today Sank talks a bit about the adjustments both hem and what he presumes other Internet players have to make when they head for the live scene.

And then I return to Sank as my hand history sounding board (he rarely agrees with my decisions), and he and I each talk about some of the recent hands we played followed by in depth analysis.

As an Internet player, Sank can surely process a whole lot all at once. And as always, he then has great insight to offer.

I recap some of the key hand history highlights over 3 different sessions. We've got a few standard stories as always of people behaving so ineptly it makes your heart hurt, but this episode is mostly wild hand history analysis. Every once in a while you find yourself in a long overnight session that takes a piece of your being from you. Your very existence feels compromised afterward. Like you've been violated. And the sickest part of all is...it doesn't even matter if you won or not.

The Bellagio 2/5 has been painfully capped at $500 for as long I've been living in Las Vegas which is well over 17 years. Recently the rake has gone up to a $6 max, so perhaps in conjunction with that they FINALLY raised the buy-in maximum to $1,000. We had all figured the Messiah would come before that ever happened, but we were wrong.

I don't figure this to be a game I play in all the time, as buying in for 200 BBs is still a bit of a tease because you can only merely TASTE the thrill getting to buy in with 300 BBs. Nevertheless, this is a massive improvement and I certainly expect to help spread out the 2/5 action in the city. It's a game I expect to be really good quite often, and that has been the case for the two sessions I recently played in--one of short length, one of normal. The normal length session was quite the facepalming ride as it was overrun with incompetent and insubordinate dealers, weird players saying bizarre things, and, of course, huge fish gone fishing. In this week's show, I over all the stories of the confusion and hand history analysis.

I haven't played too much most recently. But as I've come back to poke my head out some more, I'm now being sent to take a dive into the land of the downswing. Thankfully I only expect it to get so ugly--since it's not as if the player pool has shown even a remote sign of making any sort of improvement worth talking about and giving credit for. But here are some recent hand histories...

It's been an active couple of weeks. All kinds of provoking hands to talk about. Rather than make a 2-3 hour episode, I've broken them down into multiple shows. Here I recap the final highlight hands of what's gone on the last few weeks, including making both the royale with cheese, and one of the dumbest folds anyone can make. It's not often, if ever, that I feel like the same player is specifically trying to run me over. But now I'm not sure...because I think maybe it just happened....only he knows. And only he will ever know...

I've been falling behind on catching everybody up on the more interesting hands I've played the last few weeks. So in this episode, I recap some of them. The timelines are a bit scattered as I don't tell them all in the order they took place, but it isn't particularly important. The 2-5 pool in Las Vegas is as big a joke as it can be for the present day knowledge of the average poker player. It's so rare I come across anyone these days who seems even remotely competent beyond a one track minded level. And I've also felt the last few years that the European players (at least the ones showing up to Vegas) have substantially dropped in play quality. But I finally have encountered someone who can play and I respect. A charismatic Italian and I certainly have our share of big battles in this show.