I enjoyed this episode. Dont understand the criticism about table talk, there was a lot of it this episode and a fair amount on some of the earlier ones too. Theres a few players like Andress and Petrangelo who are terrible entertainment but other than that I think the players are doing a good job talking it up a bit.

Can someone explain why Polk was forced to leave while Andress was allowed to keep playing? Doug is a lot more funny and livens up the atmosphere.

I thought I saw him say he had no intentions of playing at all, but he was down filming a promo for the DNegs challenge and they twisted his arm to play for a while.
Something like that.

Where is anyone getting that Polk was "forced to leave?" He's said many times he's retired from poker, he doesn't enjoy poker, the HU vs Daniel was a one-off thing related to their rivalry, and that he just sat down "for awhile" at the behest of HSP because he was in the building.

It's amazing how poorly PH has played this season. He's obviously playing scared money, in addition to being a giant-sized nit. But he's great for the game because the other players attack him, and Gabe and AJ aren't afraid to really rag on him. In fact, AJ really has been getting the jabs in, which must be tilting for PH when he watches the show.

Maybe Im mistaken but I thought I heard him say so himself but I dont remember where. It could have been on some sort of podcast or interview about the fold against Phil.

Surprised Tom bet so small with QTcc!

So he plays in a month long heads up challenge vs daniel , plays in the biggest televised cash game, his twitter is a picture of him at a poker table and his twitter is filled with recent tweets about poker. Retired?

Probably saw a huge upswing in upswing memberships and has been making an effort to keep his name in the poker news

It's the Fedor Holz meme "retirement" thing where they are basically just announcing to the world "I don't need to play anymore for money lul but I might"

Is it just my memory or has Tom never bluffed a river for <75% pot? Seems he’s always value betting his non nut value hands for sizes that can find calls yet seemingly never mixing in bluffs for the same size. Could just be my memory

Like 10 years ago doug was scrolling through bravo poker live and saw 1k/2k running at venetian. He sprinted over to the casino and found Rick Soloman playing heads up vs a whale. Doug tried to sit the public game, but rick and his buddy got pissed off and told him they would quit if he played. I guess it was a huge argument and now Rick hates doug. There was a PAD series called perks of the trade where doug was shut out of being able to play the days rick was playing for the same reason.

Rick seems like a laidback and chill guy, wouldnt be surprised if Doug had absolutely 0 live poker etiquette 10 years ago.

They're discussing whether the NFL will last, and Hellmuth brings up the gladiators as a sport that didn't.

Gabe: No, you know what killed the gladiators? When they got free agency.

What's the incentive to paying Venetian rake playing HU 1k/2k in a public game? Was the whale Sheldon Adelson trying to double dip?

The rake is like nothing.

Gabe has been legit 10/10 this season, he's ****ing hilarious.

Gabe is the nuts. The show is terrible without him, we already know that based on that other comedian they had for 1 week.

1 season* you mean? You mean Norm MacDonald? I actually thought he was pretty funny tbh. Didn't have the poker knowledge that Gabe has, and wasn't quite as witty, but I thought he did a decent job and I've certainly seen much worse lol

He actually said "bad beat" when in reality Bord was ahead every step of the way lol.

The episode of HSP where Phil Ruffin played what was pretty much the greatest example of "recreational whale playing poker" you'll ever see also featured Antonio Esfandiari offering an absolute masterclass in how to socialize with the whale. The entire episode he was laughing at any bad poker joke Ruffin made, audibly complimenting him when he won hands (but not in a way that felt obnoxious or forced) and so forth and so forth. Perhaps the best moment was when Ruffin told the table "You know why everyone calls Ace-King Anna Kournikova?" joke and Esfandiari laughed as if he had never heard it before in his life, and that it was such a clever and witty joke - and the odds that Esfandiari (or anyone who plays poker with any frequency) hadn't heard that same tired stupidity a million times before is roughly 0.0%, yet here he was pretending that Ruffin said something clever that Esfandiari was just hearing for the first time.

I always think of that whenever the "watch the difference between a poker pro who understands the value of keeping the rec happy with good social skills versus the poker pro who either does not understand the value or doesn't have the social skills to do it" discussion comes up.

Get PH out of there. He is a nit and boring to watch.

Yeah, I liked Norm's effort.

Gabe has been a ****ing warlock this season. His best, imo.

Great episode. I think hellmuth was more likely to fold his flush there if daniels did not call clock, but really not a spot he should ever fold.

Totally on board with this. Esfandiari is one of the GOATS when it comes to handling the social aspect with huge fish/whales, and he gets invited to all of the best homegames from what i have been reading different places. Because the whales love to play and gamble it up with him. Many pros technically better than Esfandiari but boring and robotic at the table can just dream about being invited to the private lineups he gets to play.

Also i think Garrett Adelstein is amazing for the game while still being an absolute superbeast at deepstack live NL. Live at the Bike in recent years woudnt been worth watching if he hadnt been playing.

Makes sense if true story! Cheers for the explanation

**** Phil Hellmuth. You ****ing clown.