Thinking Poker

MSPT Player of the Year Kyna England joins Carlos and Andrew to discuss learning poker, cultivating a network of poker friends, having fun at the table, savoring the weirdness, transitioning out of the corporate world, and a tricky spot with a big draw approaching the bubble.

Support the podcast and get daily strategy segments from Andrew and Carlos by subscribing to Thinking Poker Daily!

Strategy

Hard Rock Tampa $1,100 1500/3000/3000 Effective stacks 34bb (my 100k stack) 7 handed. 25/153 left 16 make the money.

HJ opens to 6k. (2bb) CO calls. SB folds. I call Jd 7d in BB .

Flop 9h Kd Qd. I check HJ bets 7k into 22,500. CO calls 7k. I check raise to 25,000. HJ folds. CO tank calls 18k more to win 79,500. My 25k + 6k pre gives me about 69k back. Pot is now 79,500.

Turn is a 6s. He checks, I check back.

River is 4c. He checks. Hero?

Kyna England is the 2021 MSPT Player of the Year and an instructor at Poker Power.

Musician, poker player, and pizza entrepeneur Sean Lango says goodbye after many years as the show’s audio engineer. We discuss his recent poker exploits, his new business venture, and some tournament strategy from The Commerce.

Sean first appeared on Episode 49, though if you count his music he’s been on the show more than all our other guests combined! He recommends listening to Graham Hunt.

Support the podcast and get daily strategy segments from Andrew and Carlos by subscribing to Thinking Poker Daily!

Sean Lango is a professional musician and poker player and the audio engineer for the Thinking Poker Podcast. As part of Palmyra, he also performs the show’s intro and outro music.

Carlos catches Andrew and the audience up on all he’s been up to: living in Vegas, not playing the WSOP, researching how to erect a headstone on your own, and more. In the strategy segment, they discuss conservative play and big folds on the bubble. 

How to Win a Bracelet is Carlos’s latest collaboration with Alex “Assassinato” Fitzgerald.

Support the podcast and get daily strategy segments at www.patreon.com/thinkingpokehttps://gumroad.com/a/479889331/laiedmrdaily.

Strategy

Hand for hand on the stone cold bubble.   

Hero is in the BB with 9 BB’s behind (after posting blind), and AQ

Young Tunisian pro opens UTG for 2.5x from a stack of 100+ BB’s. He’s opened about 40% of the 10 hands we’ve seen.

UTG 1 calls from a very big stack.

Hero calls with AQo in BB. 

Pot: 9 BB’s and hero has 7.5 BB’s behind. Flop QJ6. Hero open-ships.

Matt Matros is a professional poker player and writer whose works include both fiction and poker books. With Carlos and Andrew, he discusses concepts from his new book, The Poker Brain, in the context of a hand he and Andrew played together deep in a WSOP event. Matt previously appeared on Episode 301.

Andrew’s latest book, Essential Poker Concepts Volume 2, is available from Amazon or the Nitcast store.

Strategy

It’s Day Three of the Crazy Eights ($888 buy-in) event at the 2019 World Series of Poker, and sitting to my right is the one and only Andrew Brokos. With blinds of 80,000 and 160,000 and a big blind ante, Andrew opens under-the-gun at an eight-handed table for 320k. I am in the next seat with 3.7 million and call with Kc Qc. The big blind also calls.

The flop comes Qh 4h 4c. Andrew bets 600k into the 1.2 million chip pot. I call, and the big blind folds.

The turn brings the 8s and Andrew checks. I check behind.

The river is the Kd. Andrew shoves for slightly more than pot.

Matt Matros has three WSOP bracelets and an MFA in creative writing. He is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, The Game Plans, and The Poker Brain.

Ben Saxton joins Andrew and Carlos to discuss why poker rooms feel a little too normal, why Andrew will not be at the WSOP, what we’ve all been watching and reading, and more.

Ben previously appeared on Episode 281 and Episode 324.

Story Club with George Saunders
Atlanta on FX (episodes 1, 4, and 7 of season 3 are stand-alones and will make sense even if you have seen nothing else of the show)
We Own This City on HBO
The Collected Short Stories of Anton Chekhov

Ben Saxton teaches literature and writing classes at Tulane Medical School and Bard Early College. He’s also a poker writer whose interviews for Two Plus Two Magazine have a lot in common with those you’d hear on the Thinking Poker Podcast!

Former poker pro Fergal Nealon joins Carlos and Andrew to talk about the Irish poker scene, Irish folklore, and Rapid Response Ukraine, a humanitarian organization working directly with volunteers in Poland and Ukraine to deliver medical supplies to the Head of the health department in Kharkiv.

Timestamps

0:30 Strategy
24:48 Fergal Nealon

Fergal Nealon is a former professional poker player, the founder and CEO of StoryTracks, and the founder of Rapid Response Ukraine.

Writer, poker player, and former sex crimes prosecutor Dan Schorr joins Carlos and Andrew to discuss preparing for his first WSOP Main Event, game theory in the criminal justice system, and his new novel The Final Table.

Support the podcast and get daily strategy segments from Carlos and Andrew at www.patreon.com/thinkingpokerdaily. 

Dan Schorr is a former criminal prosecutor and municipal inspector general. He is also a poker player and the author of the political thriller The Final Table.

In this colossal interview, poker enthusiast, filmmaker, and three-time SCOOP/WCOOP winner DrKamikaze talks to Carlos and Andrew about split pot games, mixed game tournaments, how studying other games can improve your no-limit, how studying no-limit can improve your other games, gambling addiction, passion projects, and more!

You can follow and learn from Kami at The Poker Mix or on Twitch, Twitter, Discord, or Facebook. You can learn more about the Toronto Queer Film Festival.

Support the podcast and get daily strategy segments from Carlos and Andrew at www.patreon.com/thinkingpokerdaily. 

Play Optimal Poker is now available in Spanish!

DrKamikaze is a poker enthusiast, filmmaker, and arts curator. They have SCOOP/WCOOP bracelets in NLO8, PLO8, and Badugi events. When not crushing the mixed games, they work with the Toronto Queer Film Festival.

Carlos and Andrew dive straight into strategy this week, getting in depth on river bet sizing and other theory topics.

Get Andrew’s new course on Toy Games, his course on Targeting, and much more at Solve For Why. 

Support the podcast by subscribing to Thinking Poker Daily and shopping at Nitcast.com.

Noted poker authority Ed Miller returns to the show to discuss his new venture, DeckPrism Sports, which provides 24/7 pregame and in-game Managed Trading Services for American Sports. Ed’s earlier appearances are more poker-centric:

Episode 25: General Strategy
Episode 71: Poker’s 1%
Episode 113: The Course
Episode 178: Finding Edges

Get Andrew’s new course on Toy Games, his course on Targeting, and much more at Solve For Why. 

Support the podcast by subscribing to Thinking Poker Daily and shopping at Nitcast.com.

Timestamps

0:30 hello
4:55 strategy
20:22 ed miller 

Strategy

Level 8 – Blinds: 500/1K – 9 handed table – 30 minutes levels – Freezeout

Aggresive player with 75K opens the action in middle position raising to 2.5K. All folds and the action comes to me in the button. I have 62K and Ah Ad. I decided to 3-Bet to 7.5K, the blinds folded and the original raiser calls. My image was solid because I have good hands in the showdowns I was involved. 

Pot: 17.5K / Flop: Ks 8s 5h / Villains cheks and I c-bet to 12K. He answers with a check-raise of 25K.

Ed Miller is the co-founder of DeckPrism Sports and the author of many poker books, including Playing the Player, The Course, and Poker 1%.