Thinking Poker

Roy Bhasin is a professional poker player and a member of PokerStars Team Online who specializes in pot-limit omaha cash games. He talks to us about how he got into poker, how he got into PLO, and how he got into self-improvement (hint: Tommy Angelo and Jared Tendler had a lot to do with it, as did a book called Getting Things Done). Roy’s new blog, which explores the self-discipline and motivational techniques that he finds useful in poker and in life, is at http://zenpokerguy.com/. You can follow Roy on Twitter @roybhasin.

Edit: Got more PLO questions for Roy? He’s fielding them at http://www.godlikeroy.com/poker-questions/

0:30 – Hello and Welcome

13:00 – The Roy Bhasin story

28:13 – Your PLO questions answered

Johannes Levemann is the head of Research and Development for the Snowie Group one of the creators of PokerSnowie, a neural net that has over the course of several years supposedly learned to play a nearly unexploitable no-limit hold ’em game. We talk with Johannes about what exactly a neural net is and how it learns a game as complex as poker, how he expects PokerSnowie to change the internet poker landscape, and the role that he thinks artificial intelligence will play in shaping poker’s future.

You can use PokerSnowie to evaluate and improve your own game with the PokerCoach software. You can keep up with the latest PokerSnowie news on their blog or on Twitter or Facebook.

Time Stamps

0:30 Hello and Welcome

13:15 Strategy: GTO or GTFO

49:19 Interview: Johannes Levermann

It’s time again to catch up with our old friend Gareth Chantler. From Trondheim, Norway, he tells us about his new job as a Full Tilt Poker blogger and gets Triple Draw advice from Nate Meyvis. Plus Zoom/Rush Poker strategy, Ricky Gervais is unkind to Andrew, and an epic Nate Meyvis rant.

Timestamps

0:30 Nitcast Meet-Up Announcement

4:39 Hello and Welcome

16:30 Triple Draw Strategy

24:00 Blogging for FTP

38:00 Gareth on David Foster Wallace and Nate on Dave Eggers

51:00 Andrew Brokos vs Ricky Gervais

1:01:30 Zoom/Rush Poker Strategy

Dave Thornton is one of the principals at SkillInGames and OneBillionHands, a recently-launched site with access to, well, roughly one billion hands’ worth of anonymized hole card data from real money online poker games. We talk about where these hands came from (Dave asked us to clarify that, contrary to what he may have inadvertently implied during the interview, most of the hands did not come from the partner at the data consultancy where he used to work) and the many interesting questions that can be studied with them. One early application is a more complete method of quantifying luck than has ... Read more...

Shane “Shaniac” Schleger was our very first guest, and he’s had quite a year since he last talked with us. From getting married to getting turned away at the Canadian border to final tabling the WCOOP Main Event, he shares the ups and downs with characteristic honesty. You should follow Shane on Twitter and read his blog, You Can’t Miss What You Can’t Measure, for more great stories and insights. For Schleger-recommended art, check out Broke Mogul, the Musaic app, and @ZofiaArt. Timestamps 0:30 Hello and Welcome 15:58 Strategy: He Flashed a Jack, reconsidered 24:23 Shane Schleger