PokerNews Podcast: Matt Berkey
Matt Berkey joins Sarah Herring and [Removed:139] for a wide-ranging conversation in this episode of the PokerNews Podcast.
But before the Solve For Why creator jumps on the show, Sarah and Jeff chat about all the drama that's popped up in the poker world. Negreanu vs. Deeb, Randall Emmett vs. 50 Cent, and more!
Sarah also brings Eric Steinbaugh onto the show. Steinbaugh, a poker dealer/player, is donating a kidney to his friend's mom, who he's never met before.
Then, Berkey jumps on to discuss his plans for the summer, and a new documentary that Solve For Why is creating.
Show Time Stamps
| 0:20 | Intro: Jeff back from RunGood Poker Series stop in Kansas City |
| 2:30 | 50 Cent Blasts Randall Emmett Over $1 Million Debt |
| 8:50 | Daniel Negreanu and Shaun Deeb Twitter Feud Gets Personal |
| 12:00 | Negreanu offering pieces of his WSOP |
| 14:30 | What to Expect at the 2019 WSOP |
| 16:00 | Eric Steinbaugh joins the show! Steinbaugh is donating a kidney to the mother of a player, Alexis Sterner, he's dealt to. |
| 17:10 | Meeting Alexis Sterner: "You meet some of the most amazing people in this industry." |
| 18:40 | Deciding to donate a kidney to Sterner's mother: "I just saw it and thought something needed to be done, so I should do it." |
| 20:20 | No hesitation in his decision: "It was never even really a question...that just shows it was the right decision for me." |
| 22:00 | The gofundme that Sterner set up for Eric |
| 24:20 | Why he loves the poker/traveling lifestyle: "You just understand life and the world so much more when you travel. You become so much more understanding and caring of people." |
| 26:30 | More on what's to come in the 2019 WSOP (Main Event seat giveaways, new weekly deepstacks, Gavin Smith Memorial Tournament) |
| 28:00 | Sergio Aido Wins EPT Monte Carlo €100,000 Super High Roller for $1,772,393 |
| 31:15 | Underdog Antonio Esfandiari Beats Kevin Hart in a Boxing Match |
| 32:40 | Tom 'durrrr' Dwan Becomes Latest Triton Poker Ambassador |
| 33:20 | Authorities Raid Pair of Houston Poker Clubs |
| 35:50 | Matt Berkey joins the show! |
| 36:40 | Creating a new documentary project: "At the time we were maybe a year away from Dead Money, and I kinda looked at this (struggling poker player) and was like 'he represents the community, not me.' It's so unfair to highlight the upper echelon of what it looks like to kinda make it and not put a spotlight to how difficult the struggle actually is. So we embarked upon this doc that I pitched my guys called To Be Determined, where effectively, we just wanted to shadow him." |
| 39:40 | The structure of the documentary: "I kinda see it as this gritty, grimy 30 for 30." |
| 40:20 | The emotional impact Berkey felt early in his career: "I was a trainwreck until what I hope was the final time I went broke." |
| 40:40 | Early obstacles in a poker player's career: "The sheer and utter variance that's involved in poker and the inability to curb expectations while you're young and brash and expect the world to fall at your feet is really challenging." |
| 42:20 | The path to success: "It's human nature to be comfortable or work towards comfort. But that said, we're creatures that are incredibly good at dealing with suffering. Really all it comes down to is how much suffering are you willing to, by default, take in in your comfort level." |
| 43:50 | The dangers of being complacent: "When complacency defines your ceiling now, because you have no desire to ever push through it, what ultimately happens is you spend your life regressing to the mean." |
| 45:10 | More on To Be Determined: "There's just so much emotion and empathy attached to the character. You just really get to know Oscar (the main subject) as a person." |
| 47:00 | Challenges in creating content: "The struggle is just making people care. It's so hard. We're really trying to reset boundaries when it comes to quality of content that people expect." |
| 48:20 | Plans for the Solve For Why crew this summer: more Origins episodes, a "vlog-cast" |
| 52:00 | More on the vlog-cast featuring Matt and Christian Soto: "This has been a long time coming...I really want to do it more so from the vantage point of talking about a myriad of topics rather than being poker-focused." |
| 54:20 | Tips on how to prepare for the summer grind: "First and foremost, it's an exercise in setting expectations. You should have a very clear understanding of what the average attempt at this is going to look like it." |
| 56:40 | His plans for the summer: "I am on it this summer. I'm all in on the World Series. I just did my schedule, I think I have between $180k-$300k in buyins. I'm playing literally every day." |
| 58:00 | Dealing with playing, creating content, and more in the summer: "It's gonna be hard, I'm not going to pretend like it's not." |
| 59:10 | Balancing cash games with tournaments: "The tournament grind is a lot more out of necessity than desire...but I think my ROI is pretty massive in these fields. But also, I'm spread pretty thin in cash...I'll play some cash when some good spots pop up." |
| 1:01:30 | Follow Matt on Twitter, check out Solve For Why |
Tell us who you want to hear from. Let us know what you think of the show - tweet about the podcast using #PNPod, and be sure to follow Sarah and Jeff on Twitter.
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