Top Pair Podcast 345: Interview with Chad Holloway
Bruce and Robbie are joined by longtime PokerNews stalwart, LFG Podcast co-host, and poker media veteran Chad Holloway. The trio discuss all aspects of home game play, compare notes and stories, and share their preferences for how home games ought to be best run.
Plus, home game recaps, hand analyses, giveaways, and a great One Outer take from Ben Ludlow on the recent goings-on at Rob Yong’s high-stakes home game on PokerGO.
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 |
| 3:18–22:05 | How Ya Runnin? |
| 3:36 | Robbie: Only one home game since last episode. It’s so tough to get a home game going, but sometimes there IS one going but you can’t play… that hurts. |
| 8:05 | Won a grand total of $5 but played well. That said, there was one “make or break” hand where a costly mistake was made, which had repercussions for everyone at the table for the rest of the session. |
| 10:45 | Hand analysis: when deciding how many times to run it (turn, river), stick to the math of a situation rather than letting emotions get the better of you. |
| 15:10 | Bruce: Participated in a tournament, managed to nurse a short stack to the final table and get 6 hours of play time for $40. |
| 18:25 | Explaining a new “craps-themed lonesome loser twist” to poker tournament bustouts. |
| 21:05 | Straddle book giveaway details. |
| 22:13-1:13:18 | Look who we found: Interview with Chad Holloway |
| 23:40 | Chad has rediscovered his passion for home games, having recently played in the Oddschecker office home game in London. He was a guest back on episode 217 of Top Pair, 5.5 years ago. |
| 26:35 | How many players should be sitting at a home game table? Is a cash game or tournament better for home game purposes? Plus, Chad talks about playing in the London office home game while jetlagged and on less than two hours of sleep. |
| 31:40 | Bruce confesses to having had 11 and even 12 players at a single home game table. |
| 32:25 | Is it better to play in a house/home or in an office space (off-property home game)? |
| 34:03 | Reminiscing about Chad’s Vegas home game over the summer during the 2016 WSOP. “Moonshine”, “Between the Sheets”, and more fun times… |
| 37:45 | How long should a home game last? |
| 43:20 | How should you manage a game in terms of player signups, getting people to confirm they’ll come, etc.? Discussing the importance of having a larger player pool to draw from, and getting people to commit. Sometimes you need to bluff to create “seat scarcity.” |
| 49:00 | Talking about Phil Hellmuth returning home to Wisconsin, running at least one home game in Madison. |
| 50:35 | Dedicated dealers or passing the deal among the players? How does shuffling get handled? Good to have a “division of labor.” |
| 55:00 | Using poker chips vs. actual cash (coins and bills) |
| 57:05 | How do you know what the right stakes of a home game should be? How can someone treat games seriously if the stakes aren’t high enough? How to deal with a loss if the stakes are too high? Easy, just win a “free TV”. |
| 1:03:38 | Any particular twists or poker variants Chad enjoys in his home games? Explaining “double legger.” |
| 1:09:38 | What else does Chad have coming up on his poker reporting schedule? |
| 1:13:29 | Ben Ludlow’s One Outer: Reflecting on the just-completed 4-day series of “Rob (Yong)’s home game” high stakes cash games on PokerGO. |
You can subscribe to PokerNews’ Top Pair Home Game Poker podcast on iTunes here, or you can access the RSS feed here.
Follow hosts Bruce Briggs @toppair and Robbie Strazynski @cardplayerlife, also available via email: [email protected]
