Poker Stories

Dylan Weisman spent the pandemic "in the lab," pouring over numbers that few had ever bothered to look at before when it came to the game of PLO. While solvers had been in use for years by high-stakes pros for no-limit hold'em, pot-limit Omaha had been largely ignored, and Weisman saw an opportunity.  The work has paid off in a big way, with more than $6 million in recorded earnings since the summer of 2021. Of that, $4.4 million has come in some form of Omaha, putting him at no. 2 on the PLO all-time money list behind only Finland's Eelis Parssinen. The 32-year-old has earned wins at the PokerGO Cup, PGT Kickoff Series, U.S. Poker Open, PGT PLO Series, and PGT Mixed Game Series, as well as two World Series of Poker bracelets. In March, he chopped the Triton Montenegro $100,000 PLO high roller for nearly $2 million.  As a result of his stellar year on the circuit, which includes five titles and 14 final tables, the California native now sits just outside the top 10 in the Card Player Player of the Year race.

Scott Seiver called his shot in 2024, making it known that he intended to win World Series of Poker Player of the Year honors. After 17 cashes, nearly $1.5 million in earnings, and three bracelets, he accomplished his goal and will have a banner hanging at the Horseshoe/Paris for future generations of poker players to see.  With seven bracelets overall, Seiver now ranks seventh all time and is tied with such greats as Billy Baxter, John Hennigan, and Daniel Negreanu. Despite his focus on high-stakes cash games, the 39-year-old Ivy League grad has still managed to rack up more than $27 million in tournament earnings, including numerous high roller wins and a World Poker Tour title.Highlights from this interview include a first-time full-summer grind, abandoning his chips, playing regs vs. unknowns, being recognized by his peers, good enough at Omaha, low-stakes razz over high-stakes hold'em, $2,000 movie tickets, a prestigious deuce, last of the old school, the hall of fame, 10-2 with Doyle Brunson, and dad's

Matt Savage was Tournament Director for the World Series of Poker during the poker boom, and has since spent more than a decade as the Executive Tour Director for the World Poker Tour. But the perennial Poker Hall of Fame nominee is also a co-founder of the Tournament Director's Association, which helped to standardize poker tournament rules.Every two years, poker room representatives from around the world come to Las Vegas for the TDA Summit, where they discuss the biggest issues facing the game and any needed rules changes or amendments.  This year's summit was held at the PokerGO studio at Aria, and featured a number of topics including the big blind ante, masks and wearable tech, random card theory, and just how late tournament registration should be open.  You can watch the full 13-hour replay of this year's summit on YouTube. 

Victoria Livschitz jumped head first into the shark-infested waters of the high roller scene in late 2021, having spent her pandemic lockdown studying all she could about the game. While others may have been intimidated by the talent at the very top of the pyramid, in an environment with very few women, Livschitz had already seen it all before, having found success with a number of different business ventures in male-dominated industries.  The Ukraine-born former chess champion emigrated to the United States following the fall of the Iron Curtain, landing in Cleveland. She worked odd jobs to finish school, including opening a chess academy, before landing in the automotive industry, doing research for Ford and General Motors. She then served as the principal architect for SunGrid, working on the world's first public cloud-based system, and later founded Grid Dynamics, a technology provider for many major Fortune 500 companies. After her company went public, Livschitz "retired," starting a food company to supp

Barny Boatman spent much of his youth traveling the world, living in numerous countries and working a variety of jobs that included factory worker, bartender, journalist, English teacher, computer programmer, board game inventer, and even movie reviewer. But it was in the poker world that he found his true calling.  The London-born player graduated from home games with his brother Ross to bigger games with fellow Brits Joe Beevers and Ram Vaswani, forming what would later be known as 'The Hendon Mob.' Now a tournament database site, the Hendon mob would previously travel the tournament circuit together, and was featured prominently on England's 'Late Night Poker' television series shortly before the poker boom.  Boatman earned the respect of his peers in the states with three consecutive final tables at the World Series of Poker. There were plenty of close calls, but he finally nabbed gold in 2013 in a $1,500 no-limit event for $546,080. Boatman earned his second bracelet two years later in Germany, taking do

Alex Fitzgerald has been a poker professional for half of his life, turning to the game when he was just 18 years old. In the nearly two decades since, Fitzgearld has racked up millions in online winnings with final tables on the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour.  But unlike many other top players, he has also shared his knowledge, taking on students of all levels and steering them towards a better game. In fact, Fitzgerald has worked with more than a thousand players over the years, diagnosing their play, finding the leaks and plugging them so they can start winning fast.  Fitzgerald is also an author, writing The Myth Of Poker Talent, Exploitative Play In Live Poker, and The 100 Biggest Mistakes That Poker Players Make. Players looking for help can visit PokerHeadRush.com for Fitzgerald's free poker strategy newsletter and three training videos.Highlights from this interview include a not-so-deadliest catch, playing cards on the boat, why poker beat Arby's, being a poker doctor, writing books to get

David Sklansky is perhaps the most prolific poker writer ever, and an all-around authority on all things gambling. The author of titles such as The Theory of Poker, Small Stakes Hold'em, DUCY?, Geeking, Grifting, And Gambling, and the latest, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em: Help Them Give You Their Money, is one of the few authors to simultaneously hold three spots on Amazon's top 100 bestsellers list.  The 76-year-old is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, and also took down the Poker By The Book invitational event on the World Poker Tour. When he wasn't gambling for a living, whether it was on poker, sports, or blackjack, Sklansky worked as a casino advisor. Not only did he invent the foundation for Caribbean Stud, but the 'resident wizard' famously convinced Bob Stupak to build the Stratosphere tower on the Las Vegas Strip.  Highlights from this interview include being the black sheep in a family of geniuses, logic puzzles from dad, the Ivy League poker game, being an 'insufferable' math reb

Wolfgang is a relative newcomer to the poker world, but that hasn't stopped him from finding a huge audience with his short-form vlogs. The Chicago native and Texas resident has a background in video production and editing which he has used leapfrog other top content creators to become one of the most watched poker players on the planet.The 29-year-old has seen a meteoric rise over the last year and recently became the first poker vlogger ever to reach one million subscribers on YouTube. He has racked up hundreds of millions of views overall while passing industry giants such as Brad Owen, Doug Polk, and even Daniel Negreanu, all while playing low-stakes cash games.  Highlights from this interview include joining the seven-figure club, completely missing the poker boom, Ukrainian dancing and German lessons, christian school degenerates, streaking Nutella butts, giving the algorithm what it wants, creating new players, Pokemon vs. fossils, making teachers go viral, red-card pantsing and game-winning headers, s

Jeff Sluzinski, a content creator and pro better known to his viewers as Jeff Boski, was one of the pioneer poker vloggers on YouTube. In the last six years, the ACR Poker ambassador has built a sizable audience, posting more than 600 videos and racking up millions of views.Originally from Michigan, Boski has been a professional poker player for the better part of the last two decades, having discovered the game during the early 2000's boom. He gambled on his future, moving to Las Vegas with just $10,000 in his bankroll, and he hasn't looked back since. Boski is currently having one of his best years ever, picking up wins both live and online, while also holding his own against some of the best high roller players in the game today.Highlights from this interview include dealing with oil patterns and too much torque, striking out in calculus, talking people out of their money, upsetting the boss' daughter, turning around a $1,000 per day loss, how dog videos turned into a poker vlog, talking his way into an on

It took less than four years from Jesse Lonis to climb from $200 tournaments to competing in high rollers with the best players in the world. The New York native kickstarted his career with a World Poker Tour final table in 2021 at the Lucky Hearts Poker Open and then followed it up with a deep run in the WSOP main event, taking 25th place overall. In 2022, the former construction worker won a bracelet in the WSOP Online series, and nearly added a second that summer while also making two final tables at the WPT World Championship series.  But the 28 year old has put together his best year in 2023. In January he finished third in the $25,000 high roller at the Hard Rock in South Florida for $260,000 and then added another $370,000 with a win at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. This summer, he made a last-minute decisino to play in the $50,000 pot-limit Omaha championship and broke through for his second bracelet and a massive payday of $2.3 million. He now has $6 million in career earnings.Highlights from t

Daniel Weinman topped the biggest World Series of Poker main event field in history, outlasting more than 10,000 entrants. Incredibly, he almost didn't play in the event and had to be convinced by friends, including six-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb, to fly back from his native Atlanta, Georgia for the tournament.It was Weinman's second career bracelet, having won his first in 2022 on the way to finishing second in the WSOP Player of the Year race. And despite winning a first-place prize of $12.1 million, Weinman was back at his day job the next week, working as a software engineer for RF Poker, a company that facilitates the operation and security of poker livestreams.Although he focused on cash games for much of his career, Weinman also has a WSOP Circuit ring, and two World Poker Tour titles. In 2017 he won the Borgata Winter Open and followed that up a few months later with a season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions victory.Highlights from this interview include sweating the Wall Street trader game as

Shaun Deeb was just 16 when he fell in love with poker, hosting tournaments at his home in New York. It wasn't long before he was focusing more on cards than school, and Deeb found himself quickly rising the ranks among the best online players in the world, reaching no. 1 in 2009.In the live arena, Deeb has done most of his damage at the World Series of Poker. Not only is he in an elite group of just 22 players with at least six bracelets, but he is consistently one of the best performers each summer in the WSOP Player of the Year race. In fact since 2015, Deeb has finished in sixth place or better six times! In total, he has racked up more than $13.5 million in live tournament earnings during his career, to go along with millions more won online.Deeb finished in second place in this summer's WSOP POY race, but also has four other wins in 2023, putting him in the top 20 of the year-long POY race as well. The 37-year-old has done it while also working on a weight-loss prop bet with Bill Perkins that will earn

Mike Gorodinsky is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, who is coming off a summer where he took down the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship for $422,747. The Russian-born pro, who was raised in St. Louis, Missouri, won his first bracelet back in 2013, taking down the $2,500 Omaha and stud eight-or-better mix event. But Gorodinsky's biggest score remains the $1,270,086 he pocketed for winning the 2015 $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Although the 37-year-old has the resume of a tournament pro, with more than $4.2 million in cashes and the title of 2015 WSOP Player of the Year, he is also a feared cash game player. The mixed-games master spent years competing in some of the biggest cash games spread in the world, battling it out with the best players in Bobby's Room in Las Vegas for stakes as high as $4,000-$8,000Highlights from this episode include the move from St. Petersburg to St. Louis, eloping in Greece, drunk 1 a.m. online sessions, learning bankroll management the hard way, buying a car

Jose Ignacio "Nacho" Barbero was a top-ranked, world-traveling card player long before he ever found poker. The Argentinian discovered the game Magic: The Gathering as a teen, and he was soon leading the national team in global competitions.  After six years as a Magic pro, Barbero made the switch to poker. He broke out in 2010, scoring two of his three Latin American Poker Tour victories along with a win in the EPT London high roller for nearly $900,000. In the years since, he has continued to put up consistent results, while also competing in some of the biggest cash games around.  The last year has been incredibly profitable for Barbero on the felt. In the summer, he won his first gold WSOP bracelet and $587,000. Then in February, he finished fourth at the PokerStars Players Championship for a career-best $1.55 million. After a win and a runner-up showing at the Triton Vietnam series for $1.06 million, and a win in the PokerGO PLO series, Barbero now sits in first place in the 2023 Card Player Player of th

Stephen Song has been tearing up the tournament circuit for the last few years. The New York-born, Connecticut-raised Song was a childhood chess prodigy who found poker while in college, ultimately making a deal with his parents to turn pro. After winning a tournament for nearly $33,000, he was able to pay them back his tuition in full before hitting the road on his own.  In the years since, Song has racked up more than $5.1 million in live cashes, which includes a World Series of Poker bracelet and three WSOP Circuit rings. In 2022, the 27-year-old cashed in a whopping 44 tournaments and won the World Poker Tour Prime Championship for $712,000 en route to being named the GPI Player of the Year.  Highlights from this interview include living in London, nationally-ranked in chess, why school wasn't his thing, squash scholarships, penny-stakes poker with dad, puzzle pirates, winning back his college tuition, the 'glory days of poker' back in 2016, clearing make up for a deceased backer, winning live in front of

Dr. Lara Eisenberg is not a professional poker player, but you wouldn't know it by looking at her results. She has already scored a WSOP Circuit ring, and a World Series of Poker bracelet, taking down the Ladies Championship in 2021. Then in December, she pocketed a career-high $481,500 for finishing runner-up in the WPT Prime Championship.  The 54-year-old has found a lot of success for someone who only competes on the circuit part time. When she's not staring down the pros at the table, she is usually running her own radiology practice out of her home in Maryland, or enjoying her other hobby, competitive skydiving.Highlights from this interview include being destined for medicine, why she chose not to be a surgeon, her time as a billiards hall hustler, jumping out of a plane on a blind date, landing in a Thailand driving range, becoming a world-record holder, being an early gamer, her time in WPT Bootcamp, FOMO about poker education, studying with apestyles, a profitable decision to late register, donating

Mike Holtz spent his teen years as one of the best gamers around. In fact, at one point he was considered the top-ranked World of Warcraft player and was recruited to join a traveling league called the World Series of Video Gaming. Unfortunately for the Maryland native, the league went bust and he was left looking for his next step in life.  There were numerous jobs and even a stint in jail, but after rediscovering his love for poker in a local home game, Holtz decided to move across the country to Las Vegas to be closer to the action. Although he started in cash games, he found himself to be better suited to tournaments, specifically online at WSOP.com under the name 'BrockLesnar.' It was there that he won a WSOP Circuit ring and was crowned 2021 Player of the Year. Then in 2022, the 32-year-old added his first WSOP bracelet.Highlights from this interview include Mega Bomber Man with mom, midnight baseball, World Series of Gaming and Napster, the mushroom diet, working as an underage bouncer, going to weeken

Adam Pliska has been with the World Poker Tour since the start, and along with the company recently celebrated 20 years in the game. The WPT President and CEO acted as the tour's general counsel for several years before making the switch to the executive side. Under his leadership, the WPT has since grown to a truly global scale and recently hosted a record-breaking $29 million prize pool WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.Before Pliska took the helm at WPT, however, he worked in TV production. The USC film school graduate even helped to launch programs such as Baywatch, Win Ben Stein's Money, and a reboot of Lassie. He ultimately decided to go back to law school, however, graduating from UC Berkeley. He was all set to take a job with the Senate Judiciary Committee on intellectual property law when his good friend Steve Lipscomb called him with an offer for a brand-new poker TV show that had yet to secure distribution. Pliska decided to gamble, and the rest is history.  Highlights from this interview in

Miikka Anttonen has been gambling since he was just 10 years old. He was originally drawn to sports betting and slot machines, but after moving from his native Finland to Australia, Anttonen discovered poker. Despite a few false starts, he stuck with the game, and eventually built a bankroll and turned pro.  During his nearly decade in poker, Anttonen won millions, including a title at his native Helsinki Freezeout main event in 2011. Although he was mainly an online specialist, his time on the live tournament circuit saw him travel to 70 different countries.  A few years ago, however, Anttonen took on a prop bet that saw him forced to end his poker career. In the years since, he has focused on his love of writing, and took a job in poker media working with Pokerisivut on the Last Call documentary series, now available on YouTube.Highlights from this interview include being an 11-year-old sports bettor, a teenaged slot machine addiction, buying all the candy, dropping out and moving to Australia, from the che

Jeff Platt found poker during the Moneymaker boom, but it was more than a decade before he could work it into his career. The Dallas, Texas native graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in broadcast journalism, and scored his first gig working the sports desk at a Jackson, Mississippi news station.  He then worked for ESPN covering his hometown Dallas Mavericks of the NBA, and followed that up with a job reporting on the San Antonio Spurs. He decided to take a shot in 2018, moving to Las Vegas for a chance at combining his two loves. It wasn't long before he got his chance on PokerGO with shows like Friday Night Poker and The Big Blind, while working events like the WSOP, SHRB, U.S. Poker Open, and Poker Masters. Platt is now the co-host of No Gamble, No Future, alongside Brent Hanks, which airs every Tuesday on PokerGO, with past episodes available on demand.As a player, Platt has also found success. He made consecutive deep runs in the WSOP main event, and last year finished four