Top Pair Podcast 341: Interview with Jason Somerville

Robbie Strazynski

Oct 09, 2019 Last updated Oct 10, 2019

Guests:

Jason Somerville @jasonsomerville

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Team PokerStars Pro and Run It Up founder Jason Somerville joins our hosts to talk about his home game history as well as the all-new Run It Up Live Home Games. Bruce and Robbie chime in with recaps of the many home game sessions they’ve played since last episode.

We’ve also got some great “Table Talk” from George Chao of BBO Poker Tables, plus the debut of stand-up comic and poker lover Ben Ludlow taking over the traditional One Outer segment to end the show.

Top Pair thanks their sponsor, the Poker Notes Live mobile app, for their support. Be sure to check it out!

Show Time Stamps

00:24	Synopsis
1:17–23:18	How Ya Runnin?
1:49	Bruce: Celebrating Bruce’s birthday + the 10th birthday of the Top Pair podcast. One of our listeners, Ron from South Carolina, came to visit Bruce and play in his dealer’s choice limit home game. Introducing “show ‘em hold’em” – a variation on limit hold’em where, if you’ve had money at stake in the hand you would need to show your hole cards to the remaining players upon folding. Continuing to break even overall, as usual.
12:11	Robbie: Shout out to longtime listener Chad McVean, who kindly helps spread the word of the show on social media. Played in three home games, all of which were winners – totally fine always being the second-biggest winner in a home game. Nonetheless, still haven’t yet made back losses from last episode’s worst home game session ever. Analysis of the three sessions; what went right and wrong, and what can be learned from the 15+ hours of play.
25:45–1:01:10	Look Who We’ve Found (Interview with Jason Somerville)
27:05	Jason talks about his first exposure to poker via home games, playing in $5, $10, and $20 games with his high school friends in Long Island, New York.
29:08	Jason explains the rationale behind building the Run It Up live home game studio in Las Vegas.
30:45	Reflecting upon Jason’s building up a 6-figure bankroll back in 2003 starting from freerolls in which he won $5. Testament to solid record-keeping, it took 18 months to turn that into $100,000 at age 18. Jason HAD to win at least $25K in a single session or tournament in order to be allowed to wake his parents up and let them know.
35:30	Jason credits his success to organizing thoughts with notes and writing ideas on white boards; attention to detail, even with an hourly win rate of 6 cents.
37:42	Jason shares which poker variant is his favorite and why. He’s specifically proud of having streamed the most popular non-Hold’em poker stream on Twitch.
40:31	Being an advocate of bringing mixed games to brick and mortar poker rooms, specifically at Run It Up Reno.
42:33	How is the casting done for Run It Up live home games? Who gets to take the open seats? Also, a brief explanation of Chat Plays Poker.
44:42	What does Jason enjoy about creating poker content?
47:13	Jason talks about having started to play video poker and engage in sports betting in 2019.
48:48	What, in Jason’s opinion, is bringing NEW viewers to the content he’s producing with Run It Up?
52:50	Jason’s thoughts about hosting live home games vs. hosting online poker broadcasts.
54:56	What consistently motivates Jason to keep innovating and spearheading new initiatives in the poker world?
1:02:41-1:06:43	Table Talk with George Chao of BBO Poker Tables: A description of the three different types of BBO Poker Tables customers, the types of tables they choose to purchase, and their reasons for doing so.
1:07:06	One Outer with Ben Ludlow: Some amusing musings about the Mike Postle poker scandal, specifically the way the poker community is handling it versus Mike himself.