I got to take a few more pics for Cardplayer today. They should be up and credited to me on this page: http://www.cardplayer.com/multimedia/photos/197/3229/3047

Here are a few of my favorites (click to enlarge):

(Phil Ivey)


(Prahlad Friedman)


(Layne Flack joking around)


(Layne Flack)

On tonight's "The Circuit," they talk about the prop bet I won with Daniel Negreanu (a really well-known poker pro) and I also make my first on-air appearance.

The link to the show is: http://media.cardplayer.com/audio/t/the_circuit_135.mp3

The 5:45 mark is where they talk about the prop bet I made, and at the 9:30 mark, I make a one sentence appearance on the show.

After playing late into the night in teh Stud 8 or better event, Mike Matusow sent me a text asking me to fill in for him in the next day's World Series of Roshambo, hosted by Phil Gordon. It's an event Phil puts on at the WSOP in which each participant (64 in total this year) puts up $500 and competes in a bracket-style rock, paper, scissors tournament. Some of the prize pool goes to Phil's charity "Bad Beat on Cancer," and the rest went into the prize pool ($10,000 for first, $7,000 for second, $5,000 for third, $3,000 for fouth).

I showed up and one of the video guys, Jeff, decided to follow me with a camera. We weren't sure if it was going to get to be used for anything, but at the very least I would have it documented on video.

Well, Cardplayer decided that I did well enough for it to put up on the site, so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSOalVC4Yyo

There it is on youtube OR, theres also a cleaner looking version of it at cardplayer (but you'll need realplayer and some people still are having problems with it, if it doesn't work, try the first link from youtube) - http://www.cardplayer.com/multimedia/videos?gallery_id=17751

I've also been given a bunch of photo credits on cardplayer.com. To find them, go to http://www.cardplayer.com/tournaments/multimedia/3223?show=photos , click on "31-40" under Photos on the left, and pictures 37-53 are mine (you'll have to click 41-50 and then 51-60 to see the rest).

Here are a few of my favorites, there are way more at the location above, click to enlarge:

Wow, bunch of stuff to report.

First, the people that wear nicer clothes than I do at Cardplayer decided that our daily morning news show "The Series" was simply taking up too much of the video team's time each day and redirected our efforts toward producing more feature video content. When I first heard the news I was kinda down because I thought "The Series" was a really good product and I had fun doing it ... that feeling lasted about 30 seconds until it was pile driven to the mat by the realization that I would now be able to sleep in 3 extra hours each day. Sorry to those of you that liked the show.

Secondly, I have an admission. I am an addict. This is very hard for me to say. My addiction? Guitar Hero. Scott, Joe, Gavin, Producer Danny and Video Guy Joe have all become quite obsessed with this game. At this point, it's fair to say that I'm the least hero-like of all the axe masters, but I had a really good session of "Sharp Dressed Man" yesterday, and I feel like I'm starting to play well.

Here are some pics, click to enlarge:

(Gavin vs. Scott)


(Gavin vs. Joe)



(Producer Danny vs. Baby Kangaroo)


(Caveman vs. Angry Cub)



This was also a huge week for the show. Somehow, with Sebok's and Barry's help, we got Chip Reese on the show for an interview - and Chip Reese doesn't do interviews, so thiis was HUGE. It was decided that Chip definitely warranted a double interview (44 minutes total, aired in two parts on consecutive days). Chip was GREAT and somehow lived up to astronomical expectations.




This week also marked the return of Mike "The Mouth" Matusow. This was a highly anticipated and highly hyped event, and it also lived up to expectations (click here to listen). The Mouth was his old self and it made for great radio.

Some pics from the Mouth show, click to enlarge:

(Scott and Mike)


(Mike and Gavin)




Some more random pics from the last few weeks of the show:


(Joe and Scott)


(Joe, Scott, and Dutch Boyd talk about Jesus folding Ace-King)


(Joe and Scott)


(You know it's "Grind Week" when Joe sports the bathrobe and Scott wears
a baseball cap)


(Eric Seidel on The Circuit)

I've had a number of people email me asking me if I was OK since I hadn't blogged lately, so I'd like to say that: yes, I'm fine. A combination of my days being really long and the things that seemed interesting and blogworthy at the beginning of the trip have begun to become just a normal part of my day.

So, here are a few pics from the past week. Hopefully something blogworthy happens within the next week.

(Here's how I start out my day.  This is Scott and Rich rehearsing for cardplayer.com's "The Series.")



(Chris "Jesus" Ferguson on "The Circuit.")



(Saw this hand at Caesar's Palace in a tournament.  7-7 against 5-5, all the money in before the flop.)

82: That's the number of hours I'm averaging working per week so far. I've realized a few things from working so much.

1. Liking the people you work with is exponentially more important in proportion to the number of hours you spend with them. If I didn't love what I was doing everyday, I would have already been back in PA sitting at a desk doing spreadsheets.

2. The feeling of joy when presented with an invitation to a VIP party is also exponentially proportionate to the amount of hours you have worked that previous week.

I realized #2 after being invited to the Full Tilt and Maxim party to celebrate poker pro Clonie Gowen gracing the cover of Maxim this coming month. We wrapped The Circuit the night of the party around 8:30 and got to the party at around 9 o' clock - just in time for the last hour of the party and in plenty of time to head to the after party with the Full Tilt crew. After about a year of people telling me I looked like Mike Matusow, I got to meet him and take this picture:

(myself and Mike "The Mouth")



We hung out in the Full Tilt Lounge for a while, and by some mode of locomotion of which I still have no recollection, we ended up in the VIP section of the Voodoo Lounge, the outdoor club on the roof of the Rio.

(The Voodoo Lounge)




Also met and got to hang out with a few cool people:

(from left to right: Layne Flack, Norm Macdonald, Tex Barch)



Then I got to witness Jesus Furgeson throw down on the dancefloor with guest of honor Clonie Gowen:

(Jesus and Clonie)



Around Midnight I attempted to leave but realized I had absolutely no idea how to get out of the Voodoo Lounge and ended up walking around in circles in the restaurant portion for about 15 minutes until I saw Scott. I went back in with Scott and his girlfriend for a little until they decided to leave and I used them as guides to find my way out of the club. (turns out the way out was this thing they call a "door" with a sign above it that they call an "exit sign" - everything is so cryptic here in Vegas)

I got a cab back home and 15 minutes later the cabby was waking me up telling me that we were at my apartment complex.

The next day I woke up at 7:00am and worked 14 hours. It was fun while it lasted.



Nam and Tuan Le on The Circuit:

I ran into Dutch Boyd in the hallway on the way to work today - mere hours after he won his first WSOP bracelet. He hadn't slept but was the NICEST dude. I shook his hand and said congrats and out of the blue he goes "you wanna try it on!?" (referring to his bracelet) - I couldn't say no:




I talked to him for a little (much to the chagrin of my bosses who were eagerly awaiting their grande tortolini makiavelis or whatever they get from Starbucks every morning) and it looks like we booked him for the show sometime in the next few days.

I'll post pictures of the Andy Bloch show later, but let me say this - the segment in the middle of the episode is HILARIOUS.  Go to The Circuit's page on cardplayer.com and listen to the Andy Bloch episode - Joe acts really strange in the middle segment.

Poker is so easy - just flop huge hands and get paid off.

Last night I got done work at 7pm (yea, only an 11 hour day, can you believe it?) and headed over to Caesar's Palace to play some poker. I bought in at a 1-2 No Limit table for $200 and was hitting some hands and getting paid and was up to a nice $450. Then a kid moved in on me after we raised back and forth a few times and I thought for about three minutes before calling with KK - he had it and AA held and I was back down to my original buy-in of $200. I lost a few hands and I was down to about $80, reloaded for another $200 and then went on a TEAR.

At one point, I hit quads twice in 5 hands - and stacked someone off both times. My stack was up to about $600 and this kid (who had his $500 buy-in dwindle down to a little over $225 without ever making a raise - this guy loooooved to call) and he ran me off a pot and showed me a bluff - so I told him I was gonna bust him. Well, I didn't bust him, but my roomate did (Eric was also pumped up to about $800). We goaded the kid for a little and he rebought for $200. ... 3 hands later I hit 9s full on the river (which was also a flush card) and he bet. I moved in on him for a HUGE overbet and after he thought for a while, I said "you're calling, come on, stop wasting time." I wanted him to think I was using the "I'm gonna bust you" as a way to make him fold. He called with a medium flush and I showed him 9s full and added $160 to my stack. I cashed out for $1050 for a net profit of $650. This puts my net profit for the trip at $1050 and an hourly rate of $75/hr. I'm obviously running REALLY good and I am not looking forward to the massive downswing with which I'm about to collide.

Here was my stack about an hour before I cashed out. (I won the pot in the background about 30 seconds after I took the pic)

(the blue chips are $1, the light blue chips are $2, the red chips are $5,
the green is $25 and the $100 is ... well, $100)


(sorry it's blurry, we had to go a little Bond and not use the flash since
you're not allowed to take pics in the poker room)

On last night's show we had Howard Lederer, who was just as cool as I expected him to be. Uber-producer Joe Stapleton came up with a feature where we would ask Howard to sit with Scott while he played a play money Limit Hold 'Em Sit 'n Go on FullTiltPoker.net, and they would discuss proper limit tournament strategy while also going over some of the new features on the Full Tilt software. During the sit 'n go, Scott would type stuff like "Hey guys, I have Howard Lederer sitting behind me helping me play this tournament," prompting his disbelieving opponents to wonder "I didn't know they let people play online poker in mental institutuons." Scott kept telling them "Ok, check cardplayer.com tomorrow and you'll see yourself getting owned by me and Howard."

(click to enlarge)



We expected Howard to sit with Scott for about 15 minutes and then move on to the radio show - I mean, an hour this guy's time is probably literally worth a GNP of some small countries. We kept waiting for Howard to say something like "Ok, you guys have enough footage?", but after a while we started to realize ... Howard was really trying to win this thing! I guess it just shows the true competitive nature that these top pros really have to have. They got down to heads up and ran into AA, KK, and QQ within a few hands, and Team SteamingDonkey was donk down.

Gavin and Joe arrived at the suite and Joe had just recently busted out after actaully having a good amount of chips for the first time in the series and was noticably and understandably disapointed. One of reasons I've really enjoyed working on the show is that when either Gavin or Joe or Scott is in kind of a funk about something that happened that day, we get into show mode, get the guest in the suite, Danny says go, and at least some of that just falls away and everyone is in Circuit Mode. For that 46 minutes, it's just (usually) an awesome energy.

(click to enlarge)


I'm so thankful for the fact that I got lucky enough to get this job at least for the summer, to the point where I'm not even minding the fact that I haven't had a day shorter than 12 hours yet (most of my days are 8am-9pm, some have been 8am-Midnight). The apartment doesn't really feel like a place that I live yet, because I think I've only spent around 10 hours there while being not-asleep. It kinda feels like my cabin at summer camp since I really only go there to sleep.

I didn't blog after the Steve Dannenmann show so here is a few pic from that show.

(click to enlarge)

o yesterday was the first installment of Cardplayer's The Circuit . We got to Scott's suite at the Rio around 3:30 and started pre-production, which is going to be much more intensive now that there are mandated and scheduled break times for Sirius to air it's commercial breaks. We all stressed for a little over moving around the segments to fit the timeline, but ultimately figured out something that would work. I spent most of the day doing research and writing notes and copy for Scott to use on the air.

Around 6:00, Joe Sebok (show co-host) poker pro Jean Gluck showed up for Jean to record some show intros.




Around 8:00, Joe got a call from the show's guest that night Barry Greenstein was downstairs. Joe very matter-of-factly asks me to go downstairs and pick up Barry. This task that should have been very simple (walk to an elevator, take the elevator to the ground floor, bring another person upstairs in the elevator) struck me as very daunting. I was, however, able to avoid tripping or vomiting at the meeting of one of the top poker players in the world, and I got Barry upstairs to do the show in once piece.

During Barry's interview, I ran the video camera since Cardplayer wants all the shows documented on video. The tripod wasn't working so I had to hold the camera the whole time ... which hurt. After Barry's interview, we calculated if we would have to trim or extend any other segments to meet the specific time requirements based on if Barry's interview was slightly overtime or short. The rest of the show went ... uh ... bumpily. From what they tell me, the first show back from a break is always a little rough; but even that combined with the fact that Gavin wasn't able to be there, we had these new time constraints to conform to, and Scott being admittedly nervous with the Sirius thing, I think we did good. I left the suite at about midnight and superproducer Danny Eglehoff was still hard at work piecing together the show for upload to Sirius and Cardplayer.com.

It's gonna be a long, fun, and rewarding summer. 

[For anyone that for some strange reason would care as much as me about if my name gets mentioned on the show (coughpsychocough), the show can be heard by clicking HERE , and my name gets dropped at the 5:30 and 8:15 marks.]

I often heard people talking about how the heat in the southwest isn't nearly as bad as you would think by just looking at temperature numbers because in the East Coast we have a skewed perception of what certain temperatures feel like due to the humidity making it feel hotter.  Well, I've been here 4 days now (all of them having reached a temperature of 100 degrees and once over 110) and I have one thing to say to those people - fuck you.

110 degrees is hot.  It's just hot.  I don't care if it's 110 degrees and it's a DRY heat or if its 110 degrees and it's raining slurpees - it's just really fucking hot.  Yesterday we took a cab to get groceries and had to leave some in the parking lot while we carried up the first few bags.  The walkway around the back of the building isn't more than 50 feet and we couldn't have left the bags more than 45 seconds at most; when we got back, the plastic bags had started to melt and stuck to the pavement a little.  That's not supposed to happen on this planet.

Oh, it's a dry heat?  So is fire.

Surprisingly, the apartment turned out to be just as nice as it looked in the brouchure.  The internet connection BLOOOOWS so far, but I think we'll be getting it fixed within the week.

(click pictures for larger versions)







The flight was quite bumpy and there were a few times that I closed my eyes long enough that you could liberally call it sleeping.  I went out with a few of the guys from the forums last night - first to a bar, and then to the Orleans where I watched Aaron turn $300 into over $2100 in a little over an hour at Paigow Poker (the downswing of which I hope to not be a witness).

We have training today at one of the Cardplayer employee's houses.  After that, a bunch of the NWP guys are in town today, so we are meeting up at Caesar's for some hanging out and probably a little poker.  Hopefully something will happen soon that will warrant an entry that isn't mind-numbingly boring as these last few have been.

  &   

I just got the word from Scott Huff, the host of 'The Circuit', that for the duration of the WSOP (and possibly continuing after) 'The Circuit' will be broadcast every Monday - Friday from 8-9am on Sirius 122. The show will still also be available as a podcast.

Well, I just found out where I'll be living for at least the summer - the Oakwood Apartments. 









I'll have a two-bedroom apartment with a living room and kitchen.  They come fully furnished (including washer and dryer) and we have maid service once a week.  I emailed my soon-to-be roomate, but no response yet.  (actually I just got an IM from him this second)

More updates to come.

Well, here goes.  After over a year of being a college graduate and working a boring office job totally unrelated to my degree, I finally got a break. As of late June, I will be working for Cardplayer magazine at the World Series of Poker - a surprisingly joyous end to what was an excrutiating year.

I first applied for the job around 6 weeks ago (I think, I don't feel like counting) when it was announced on cardplayer.com's The Circuit. The combination of A) my luck with finding a job up until that point, B) the fact that I knew there would be thirteen thousand people applying, and C) the fact that the powers that be usually don't allow people to get their dream jobs, made me pessimistic to say the least. However, I decided that I'd send in my resume (which showed me to be drastically qualified, if not overqualified, for the position - not that that mattered with any of the previous twelve hundred jobs I'd applied for), and a writing sample (which was a few selected entries from my other blog http://jshronk.blogspot.com ).  They announced the five finalists would be announced on the next installment of shows from the next tournament.

Sometime between then and the next broadcast, I got a phone call from the show's host and last year's Cardplayer WSOP intern Scott Huff.  He informed me that I was one of the finalists (to which I yelled "Hasan Habib!", obv.), and also elluded to the fact that I may be the frontrunner at this point.  He complimented my writing sample and said he could tell I had the sense of humor to fit in with the Cardplayer guys - this was... (what's the opposite of disconcerting? concerting?) ... anyway, I was feeling good.  I got back to my desk and emailed a bunch of people with the good news.  I was still approaching the situation with trepidation though - partly because I'm a cynic and partly because I didn't want to jinx anything.  Each of the five finalists would be interviewed on the air on the show before the winners were announced.

The first candidate went on the show, and it just left me feeling better about my spot; he was kinda boring and didn't have any multimedia experience or education - he looked to be drawing pretty thin.  The next night Scott called me asking if I wanted to get interviewed that night.  I said yes, did the interview, and ended feeling really good.  I did ... meh, so-so on the little fake quiz they give, but I had a few jokes that went over pretty well, so I felt like I was a pretty solid favorite going forward. (my interview can be found here , I think it starts at the 23:00 mark).  They then had to delay the final two interviews til the next set of shows from Mandalay Bay, over a week later.

Needless to say, the wait was becoming somewhat gut-wrenching.  The Mandalay Bay shows started up, and the final two candidates went.  The first of which was pretty much dead money, the last guy wasn't too bad, but again, I had the degree and experience - I still felt this was mine to win. 

The day of reckoning came - the guys said they would be announcing the winner on June 7th's show.  I set my alarm to wake me up at 3am (the time the show is usually posted online by) woke up and bleary-eyed-ily fired up The Circuit only to find out that the guys' final choice for intern was still under review by the suits and wouldn't be announced 'til the next night.  grrrr.

The next night, I was at a local bar trying to keep my mind off of the fact that I was going to possibly recieve a life-changing announcement within a few hours when my phone vibrated to tell me I had a voicemail - dammit, I forgot I didn't get a signal in the bar.  I went outside to check it and sure enough it was from Scott, and sure enough, I got his voicemail when I called back.  Drat! - back into the bar.

About an hour later I left the bar and called Scott and this time he answered:

"Hey, its Justin."
"What's up buddy?"
"So uhh, what's the deal?"
"Well, you should go listen to The Circuit."
"Ahh man, I'm not near a computer, can you just tell me?"
"You got it, you're gonna be our intern for the summer."
"*some noises that probably resembled something that could be heard as positive rejoicing*"

So, now all that is prologue.  That is where I stand now.  I'm currently waiting to be emailed my agreement/contract thingy at which time I will know specific dates and all that shennanigans.  I'm excited, to say the least.  A lot is still unknown about my upcoming summer.  One thing I do know is this - I'm certainly going to have a lot to write about.

So that's where this comes in.  I'm going to try to chronicle most of my adventures in Las Vegas, jotting down anecdotes about pros I meet, extraordinary things I see, and maybe even stuff I've learned. (it will surely be more interesting than this entry, that I will garuntee)

The summer is about to begin, and with it, my journey to Las Vegas.  Here goes.


The boys from 'The Circuit'