Manz Catches Up With J-MO

Cuntycakes. It’s not a nickname most people would choose for themselves, but Jason Mo doesn’t really give a shit about such things, his Twitter moniker highlighting that fact, and his recent podcast with similarly unorthodox Pete ‘Manz’ Manzinelli merely adding weight to this theory.

J-Mo (nicknames come naturally to the Missouri man) is not one to mince words, public spats with the GPL, Jaime Staples, Pokernewsand, well, just about everyone in the poker world over the past few years testament to his ability to start a fight in an empty room – so who would bear the brunt of his wrath when Manz gave him an open mic?

Fedor bots and Kitty

Well, for starters, Fedor Holz and the ‘robotic’ German players get an early mention when J-Mo describes No Limit as pretty much dead because everyone knows what they’re doing and is a nit, later describing the ‘Fedor-bots’ as “the most boring motherfuckers of all time!”  “Davidi Kitai”, is Mo’s suggestion for our man Manz to look up to instead of the GTO-Germans, saying:

“He has no idea what he’s doing, but he soul –reads you!”

For one of the best players out there, Jason Mo seems to spend less-time grinding it out than almost anyone, “Less than 10 hours a week”, he confesses – and even his travels to Australia and Macau are more exploring than poker-playing. With $2million in live tournament winnings and online cashes galore, he can afford to take it easy, but the low-profile hasn’t kept him out of trouble.

“I honestly don’t know a single poker vlogger”, claims Mo – which is hard to believe as long-time friend and Evil Empire partner Doug Polk must have registered on his radar, although recent events may have soured that relationship somewhat – but the chat leads them onto…

Banned from the Bellagio!

“What? What did you do?” splutters Manz, to which the reply is, “What did I do -I didn’t do anything!” adding, “They thought I was counterfeiting chips, so they took $5000 from me and banned me.”

It transpires that Mo had inadvertently left a chip in his jeans pocket as it made its way through the washing machine – the scuffed chip no longer readable – and over 5 years on the ban still stands, and the $5K is still in the Bellagio’s hands.

“Fuck the Bellagio!” says Manz, despite an earlier ‘family-friendly’ warning about the CuntyCakes name. “Bellagio, if you’re watching, this man is innocent… let this man back into your poker room, he’s not a cheater!”

Well, it’s Manz, and his style is as far-removed from the lovely ChicagoJoey Ingram as it’s possible to get, which is what makes it compulsive viewing – part-comedy, part-poker drama the end result.

“I like to see people fail at things… and make money while doing it,” states Mo of his short-selling hobby, but you get the feeling half of his ‘nasty’ side is firmly tongue-in-cheek, egged on by Manz and boredom and who know what else! But then he goes on to slate the ladies event at the WSOP, and you know he’s actually serious in his disdain for certain areas of the game.

EPT controversy

The ‘missing chips’ controversy from EPT Barcelona still gets him riled 3 years on, Mo recalling that when he asked to see the camera footage from the ‘colouring up’ he was told ‘We don’t have cameras here’. 

“What the fuck? They have a 1st prize of over €1million… my stack was worth, say, €100,000…” only to be told by the TD, ‘Oh, we can’t afford cameras, it’ll cut into our profits, singling out “Lee Jones… who’s a giant asshole, fuck that guy!” for bullshitting about how amazing the event was despite the obvious problems.

And that’s how it is with Jason Mo – he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and the Manz’s podcast brings out the best (and perhaps the worst) of him – but it’s a refreshing approach to poker because if nobody talks about the problems and negatives, nothing gets done about it!

Lucky Amaya and PokerStars?

“As I see it, poker should be a game of skill, and they’re trying to make it less-and-less skill-based…and more-and-more luck based,” explains Mo about the beleaguered giants of the online poker world, describing how the majority of players hated the recent Panama live event they ran.

“Basically they’re trying to turn it into a casino where the house always wins.”

If you’re looking for an upbeat podcast about how great poker is…it’s not this one! Manz keeps it amusing, and Mo is engaging, but you might be left wishing you had Mo’s riches and could wander away from the game shouting ‘My name is CuntyCakes!’ over and over!