Poker Media: The Next Generation

(Photo: Flickr.com)

The Poker Media has come a long way, back from the 70s and 80s when it was basically non-existent and going forward to the 90s when there were just a few poker magazines that tried to cover a little bit of everything.The 2000s brought theonline poker boom with Chris Moneymaker, lots of TV poker shows and round the clock nosebleeds action on the virtual felt. Yet something was missing: it wasn’t a poker media per se as the community didn’t know much about the players’ life away from tables.

As the poker community grew more and more though, the juicy and never-heard-before details of some random poker wizkid’s life become more and more enticing. That’s where the forums came in: specialized forums like 2+2 had a great influence on bringing the players together who made assumptions, spread rumors and gave actual facts on what really happened behind the screen. From that point on, the race to create a real poker media was on.

Who Started It All?

And poker legends like Daniel Negreanu were there right from the start trying to expose a pro’s life in all sorts of ways, from interviews to blogs and well-told stories. Of course, the newer generation of the late 2000s saw the opportunity and tried to get a piece of that pie.

Think of 2 Months 2 Million for example. One particular member of the 2M2M crew, Jay Rosenkrantz aka ‘KRANTZ’ fell in love with the film industry and started creating many interesting projects that helped the Poker Media reach the big stage. Films like ‘Bet, Raise, Fold’ or the famous animated series The Micros (created by KRANTZ and John ‘JimmyLegs’ Wray) were definitely hits enriching the overall poker landscape.

Also 2+2 users like ‘Brilliant27’ aka Eric Steinberg played a big part interviewing many big poker players, making videos and creating some awesome content for the News, Views & Gossip forum. And let’s not forget other interesting videos and documentaries like UltimateBeat which explained in depth the scams in in the industry.

But enough about the past! Yes, all these players paved the way but now other players are stepping up and trying to take the reins of the Poker Media. The next generation, starting with Joey Ingram aka ‘ChicagoJoey'.

Joey Ingram

Ingram saw the real potential of the poker media almost three years ago when he started his famous Poker Life Podcast on YouTube. He noticed many were sweating the nosebleeds and were very interested in finding out more about the high rollers’ life besides the actual process thinking behind all of their poker decisions. So ChicagoJoey started inviting them, one by one, talking about various topics from poker to lifestyle. His audience grew gradually and now his podcast is arguably the most entertaining in the business. Why? Because it’s not targeted only for the serious poker players but also for the recreational who doesn’t care much about strategy. He cares about how a player conducts himself away from the table, what kind of life he has, if he’s funny, how he approaches women and so on.

And if you didn’t listen to any Poker Life Podcasts and want proof, how about this special episode starring Olivier Busquet. According to one of his tweets, the podcast with Busquet was the most entertaining for him.

Of course, he hadn’t invited William Kassouf yet. Several months later after Busquet, Kassouf showed up and it was quite show from very awkward dialogues (for Joey Ingram at least), to serenades and how to pick up girls, Kassouf way. Check this out:

Doug Polk

The first guest to star in ChicagoJoey’s podcasts was a young man who was crushing Heads-Up No Limit named Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk. Almost three years later, Polk is everywhere, from Twitch and YouTube to Twitter and Facebook, from social media to poker media.

Along with Ryan Fee, he created a new poker training site yet between his streams and his$100 to $10,000 bankroll challenge, he manages to create awesome content on his YouTube channel. Noticing the success of the News, Views & Gossip forum on 2+2, Polk created a new fun show in which he talks about the latest poker rumors - Polker News. For example, exposing Alex Dreyfus and talking about how the Hall of Fame should actually work:

Besides this show, Polk also offers valuable insights on the poker world in his short videos called Poker Thoughts. And since Twitch is trending big, in the latest Poker Thoughts video, Polk shares his opinion on this matter:

GG Doug!

Jaime Staples

Jaime Staples is another young gun who decided to create his own content and make a difference in the poker media industry. He started it off on Twitch trying to dethrone the current King, Jason Somerville. In the meantime, he realized he is still a long way from getting there so he changed his perspective and also went ‘live’ on YouTube where he shares moments of his life and also opinions of the hottest poker topics with the rest of the world.

His vblogs are very entertaining showing how the young pros are managing their everyday lives with basically $1,000 flips:

Or why a new player ranking system is needed in the poker world. So it looks like fish and fun player are obsolete so how about ranking the skill uni-style?

Sounds legit Jaime!

Who’s Next?

There are others who could make our list easily like Maria Ho helping Poker Central reach the top (Poker Central also does a very good job covering the GPL) or Jason Somerville and his Run It Up videos but let’s wrap things up by looking forward and thinking about who is likely to join Ingram, Polk & Staples in the near future.

So how about starting with Parker ‘tonkaaaap’ Talbot who just recently decided to create his own YouTube channel? Talbot is quite popular on Twitch and and now he wants to give YouTube a shot also. But so far, he has only uploaded parts of his Twitch streams. There’s no questions he’s entertaining and some kind of a podcast or vblog to share his opinions on random poker topics should help him a lot in growing his audience. For starters how about explaining his fold with pocket Kings in a $1,050WCOOP event?

And do you know who else would make a great addition to the trending Poker Media? Phil Galfond, a poker genius who flew under everyone’s radar for quite some time. Yes, he wrote some great blogs but hasn’t quite embraced the poker media. He has a training site and now, he plans to create a new online software designed FOR the poker players. So he has to step into the light and get more involved in the media business.

Till then though, we must deal with what we have. And check PokerTube daily as we will make sure to cover the hottest poker topics around. And help the next generation get through.