Andrew Neeme Bellagio Cash Game VLOG

The Bellagio is the latest live venue to get on board with the whole live streamed cash game phenomenon following in the footsteps of Live at the Bike and From Dusk Till Dawn. As with the other live stream’s the Bellagio’s Poker on the Strip – which can be found on their Twitch account – is a cash table streaming on 30 minute delay from their poker room. The table is open, anyone can play, and the action is augmented with the usual graphics displays, hole cams, and professional commentary.

For their third time running the game, they invited Andrew Neeme along for his first ever live streamed poker game. He in turn invited one of his subscribers along: Cody and the two of them took to the table to play $2/$5/$10 No Limit Hold’em.

Neeme’s nerves are understandably a little racked as he worries about making a fool of himself on camera (not for the first time, as he notes, being all self-deprecatory). But it’s nice for his friends and family to get to watch, and nicer still for us to get the highlights on his vlog.

He makes some interesting points about how to adjust to playing on camera – not wanting to look like a nit or get caught in a big bluff. He talks about how foolish this is, noting that you’ve just got to respond to the game as it happens. In the end the plan boils down to:

"I’m gonna have a few beers, and probably gonna put a few straddles on."

Despite this, there are a couple of hands he acknowledges he played to give the viewer a good time. But nothing too disastrous, and he gets away with a tasty profit without having to dig into his ‘reload cup’ which is a plastic pint glass into which one’s reloads go while at the table. Neeme reckons it’s so the money is on the table for the camera, though I assume it is more about making ratholing a little harder.

It does make it look like there is more money on the table though, and everyone knows you’ve got a few extra quid behind.

There’s no electronics allowed at the table so once we get into the hands it’s all the footage from the live stream complete with graphics tracking the action and a little extra commentary from the guys in the booth (look out for the anecdote about the Texan at a $3/$6 game). The additional camera angle, which include faces and other people’s cards is quite an improvement (and must save on the editing time for Neeme). 

Some highlights include accidentally three betting 86s into aces and kings preflop, a very involved commentator who can’t believe how often Neeme gets reraised and a super interesting hand brought about by the seven-deuce game.

You still get the usual commentary from Andrew who is now a small face in the top right hand corner and the whole episode makes for a fun format shift for the vlog. The only thing missing is a drone flight...