Tonkaaaap's New YouTube Channel

Like in that famous Bob Dylan song "The times they are a changin". Just ten or twelve years ago you had to kidnap a family member of a known 2+2 pro in order to make him answer your burning questions like "should I fold AKo to 3bet when I'm out of position?", nowadays you don't even have to wear pants to watch daily sessions of top players in the comfort of your own home. Parker "Tonkaaaap" Talbot is one of the biggest names in the recent wave of popular Twitch poker streamers and he aims to expand his audience with his new YouTube Channel.

From the Man Himself

Here's what Tonkaaaap had to say about his venture into the realm of cat videos and music clips reaching more than a billion views only to be almost completely forgotten shortly after:

"People were coming to me everyday telling me that they weren't able to catch the stream for XYZ reasons and that they wanted some place to watch all the replays because my VODs on Twitch were muted due to the music I play on stream. I decided it might be a good idea to get this content out onto YouTube and possibly grow my stream by reaching some new poker fans."
I am trying to do things a little different than other poker YouTubers going forward as I want to bring the fun back and not have things so rigidly defined by strategy and straight up promotion. So along with our stream "highlight replays" you'll see stuff like me misclick folding KK preflop or vlogs from my trips to EPTs and live tournaments around the world, & similar things that are meant to be short, but to let people get a break from the monotonous strategy content out there. Don't get me wrong, there will be strategy content, just presented in a different way than you're used to seeing."

Masterclass in Branding

A quick glance at the channel itself is enough to realize that Parker clearly knows what he's doing. First of all, the name "Team NeverLucky" is brilliant on so many levels. Tonkaaaap basically hijacked an unclaimed meme from the borderlands of poker and gaming (popular video games like Hearthstone often feature a luck element which makes the "never lucky" phrase very relevant for one of the largest viewer demographics) and avoided making the channel name about himself which might hurt its popularity in the short run but offers some interesting marketing opportunities in the long run.

Tonkaaaap is also committed to a certain established YouTube standard. Every video on his channel has an interesting thumbnail, it opens with a short clip intended to grab the viewer's attention and "Team NeverLucky" intro following it. Contrary to his live streams that often take hours and hours on end the videos are usually far more concise in nature ranging from fun 5-7min clips, through 10min video blogs with some longer 20-30 min videos targeted at the "core audience".

Speaking of the audience, while Twitch.tv is a perfect platform for more hardcore poker and gaming enthusiasts who are used to the long, unedited broadcasts, YouTube is much better at grabbing the attention of the casual audience. Also, not everyone has enough time to watch a long poker Twitch stream. Here's a great example of a video that might eventually find its way into the 'recommended videos' section of a YouTube user who never really heard about Tonkaaaap or even poker, but might be interested in watching someone playing for $2500:

The video is short, cleverly edited (trimming the fat off while preserving continuity), fun and interesting with gripping title worded well enough to grab attention without spoiling the story. I bet dollars to donuts that this video alone will most likely introduce more people to online poker than entire marketing teams of small poker rooms.

Another great example of a video perfectly suited for casual poker audience. Virtual reality is the shiny new toy and immensely popular buzzword capable of capturing the interest of a good percentage of the YouTube viewer population.

And here's a well-edited video blog from EPT Barcelona that's perfect for dedicated fans who want to take a peek behind the scenes at the life of a live tournament pro.

Last thing that's worth pointing out is that with a relatively modest amount of around 6,5k subscribers, videos on Tonkaaaap's channel manage to attract respectable viewer numbers (especially when we consider how recently this channel was conceived), which seems to confirm the notion that YouTube has the potential of bringing an entirely new audience to the poker world.

A Sign of Things to Come

Poker is evolving. Black Friday hit the market pretty hard, but by now it's mostly a distant and unpleasant memory. Between the rising popularity of Twitch poker, French players returning to the general online player pool, new popular poker media and optimistic developments in Asian markets it's pretty safe to assume that the rumors of poker's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

YouTube channels of famous Twitch streamers like Tonkaaaap, Doug Polk or Jaime Staples can play a very important role in reinvigorating the poker ecosystem and "Team NeverLucky" is a perfect example that can be emulated by others.