We've reeled in another top pro player.
Andy Bloch, one of the most personable pro poker players out there, will be our guest on the March 22 podcast. He'll talk about an emerging disagreement between some pro players and the World Poker Tour, as well as fill us in on his full slate of projects, from a new blackjack DVD, a new book and his affiliation with FullTilt. (The Cineaste, aka Fatso, spotted him playing in a $20 HORSE SNG recently. Way cool.) Also, we'll try again with our long-delayed shows discussing the life of a dealer and the life of a poker room manager on the next two podcasts (March 8 and 15). Our guests for the shows will be a dealer and a shift boss from The Silks Card Room at
Tampa Bay Downs. Start posting your questions here for all three guests. March will be an action-packed month at Ante Up!
We've reeled in another top pro player. Andy Bloch, one of the most personable pro poker players out there, will be our guest on the March 22 podcast. He'll talk about an emerging disagreement between some pro players and the World Poker Tour, as well as fill us in on his full slate of projects, from a new blackjack DVD, a new book and his affiliation with FullTilt. (The Cineaste, aka Fatso, spotted him playing in a $20 HORSE SNG recently. Way cool.) Also, we'll try again with our long-delayed shows discussing the life of a dealer and the life of a poker room manager on the next two podcasts (March 8 and 15). Our guests for the shows will be a dealer and a shift boss from The Silks Card Room at Tampa Bay Downs. Start posting your questions here for all three guests. March will be an action-packed month at Ante Up!
Christopher Cosenza is co-host of the longest running poker podcast on the planet, Ante Up! He started playing poker seriously in 2003 and his favorite players are Phil Ivey and Kenna James, though he tends to act like Phil Hellmuth if you make a bad play against him.
Scott Long, Ante Up!'s other co-host, is the author of the monthly Bet on It column in tbt*. He began gambling way too young (don't tell the fuzz!) and in the seventh grade, named his state "Gambleland" for a school project (State Animal? Loan shark, of course).
Great to hear you are having another pro guest on the show, and Andy Bloch in particular. I followed his blog for awhile several years ago and he seems like a very genuine, likable player.Interested on hearing his thoughts on the WPT. I'm assuming it will have something to do with the issues addressed by Steve Lipscomb in his "open letter to the poker community" late last year.Here is a link to that letter (as well as Lou Krieger's commentary) so the readers here can get a primer on some of the issues if they are not already familiar with them:http://pokerplayerblog.com/lou-krieger-blog/steve-lipscombs-open-letter-to-the-poker-community/I know there was some talk of a boycott of WPT events and I'm sure you'll get into that and ask if the boycott has materialized this season and who is participating in it.Mark in Seminole
Posted by: Gambit727 | March 03, 2006 at 10:10 AM
Not only was Andy playing $20+2 HORSE SNGs, last night I entered a $5+0.50 multitable Omaha tournament with Andy. Alas, my first hand (I had been playing O8) was a great looking hi-lo hand, and it wasn't till I had donked off 500 of my 1500 starting stack that I remembered that it was straight Omaha! There was a great $10-$20 NL table going last nite on FT, too, including Andy, Mike Matusow, John Juanda, and a couple other pros. Andy had A4 suited, flopped nut flush draw plus a str8 draw, then hit the flush to beat 99 for about $1,600...all the while answering observer chatter about blackjack percentages. Nice guy.
Posted by: The Cineaste | March 03, 2006 at 11:51 AM
NAPT, if it lives up to the hype and makes the right decisions early out of the gate will revolutionize and legitimize poker as a professional sport. I think it will be great for both amatuer and professional players alike to have a set of standards and rankings to look at. Its a great time to be a poker player.
Posted by: Jason | March 03, 2006 at 07:43 PM
I'm interested in a little of the history behind Full Tilt, as they have shot from obscurity to one of the highest volume poker sites on the internet bypassing many other recent poker start-ups and even some of the sites that have been around for years. Who's idea was Full Tilt? Was it started by one of the pros or a business person? How involved were they in the design of the site...I have this vision of Chris Ferguson and Phil Gordon (both with IT backgrounds) banging out the code for the poker client software...lol. Are the pros contractually obligated to play a certain number of hours on the site? I know they just released the Mac client for FTP, any plans on a release for PDA's or smartphones running Windows Mobile? (currently an untapped and growing market...hint hint ;-) )Mark in Seminole
Posted by: Gambit727 | March 15, 2006 at 01:17 PM