From Newscaster to Vlogger: Ben Deach Explores Poker in Reno
Earlier this year, Ben Deach expanded his presence in front of the camera. For 14 years he’s served as a news broadcaster, and he’s supplemented that income as a cash game grinder for the better part of a decade. Now, he’s quickly rising through the ranks of poker vloggers.
Deach is Reno through and through. It’s where he was raised and where he still lives with his wife Debbie and their dog and cat, Leo and Oliver respectively.
He graduated from the University of Nevada journalism program in 2007 with a desire to be a sports broadcaster, which he was able to do by nabbing a job at a local sports radio station. He began hosting sports talk radio and doing play by play for the Reno Silver Sox, the local minor league baseball team.
Radio Killed the Poker Star
Deach remained in sports broadcasting until December 2014, which is when he was unceremoniously laid off.
“I came in to do my show, and I was told I was being laid off,” he told PokerNews. “There would be no negotiating, and I would get no final show. They basically just pointed to the door. Many other on-air personalities met the same fate that day.”
Deach: "If you just talk strategy you will lose people, and if you don’t talk enough of it you will lose people as well."
The experience made him think hard about playing poker full time, a game he learned, ironically, thanks to his radio show in 2008.
“The salespeople made a deal with the Atlantis poker room to have my co-host and I qualify listeners to play a poker tournament with us as a way to promote their newly renovated poker room,” he explained. “We qualified one listener a day until we had three tables full. I had never played seriously before, so I had no idea what I was doing, but I studied before the tournament strictly to make sure I would win a last longer bet against my co-host, which I did. The experience sparked my interest and I have been playing ever since.”
“I started playing tiny tournaments and limit cash games, before ultimately giving up both – and switching to no-limit cash – which is now virtually all I play.”
Deach had been doing well at the tables in his free time, but instead of going full-time, he decided to give TV news a shot.
“I was hired as a part-time overnight associate producer at our NBC affiliate,” he said. “It paid barely more than minimum wage, and I had to show up to work at 2 a.m. For some reason, I agreed to that. A year later I got the reporting job at the ABC affiliate in Reno and have been there since.”
Starting a Vlog
In an effort to find a way to get his broadcasting career and poker to overlap, Deach decided to start a vlog, which launched earlier this year.
“I was already adept at shooting and editing video, so I knew I could put out a quality product,” he said. “My hope was that doing the vlog would help my poker game, and so far, that has been the case. I still am amazed at how many people comment on the vlogs. I think the key to poker vlogging is to be balanced. If you just talk strategy you will lose people, and if you don’t talk enough of it you will lose people as well. I feel good vlogs have a mix, which is why I felt that throwing in elements from my TV job is a nice compliment to the poker strategy.”
As of now, Deach has released more than a dozen vlogs including one with popular Los Angeles cash game pro Abe “Limon” (Episode 7) and another describing a bad beat at the hands of the “Octo Crab” (Episode 6). They’ve proven quite popular among his thousands of subscribers, and Deach doesn’t plan on slowing down.
“The thing that I have always wanted to do regardless of the vlog is to take a few weeks and drive across the country by myself hitting up different poker rooms along the way,” he said when asked if he has any fun ideas upcoming. “I have never had enough time off from work to consider actually doing it, but this vlog is giving me added motivation because I can’t think of anything that I could do that would be better vlog material.”
As for his immediate plans, don’t expect to see Deach in Vegas. Not only does he have newscasting responsibilities, he finds the local games are softer in the summer.
“I have stopped playing tournaments, but many of the best players in Reno have not. I have found that the best thing to do during the WSOP is to stay home. I don’t lose money traveling, and all the guys I don’t want in the games are in Vegas.”
You can follow Deach on Twitter @BenDeach. Here’s a look at Deach’s latest Vlog:
