So gathering Count The Zeros footage is a real pain, especially since it seems like you can't even watch real money tables on PokerStars anymore from the US.

That said, I'm going to put my podcast-host cap back on and start to interview a few of our pros.

I need some ideas as to what types of topics you guys would like to hear and would love to collect questions from you guys as well. So I present to you a few questions:

1.) What would you like the podcast to cover?
- More laid back 'coffee shop' feel talking about stuff with our pros that is probably lesser known by the public (i.e. hobbies, fond poker stories, etc)
- More strategy-based stuff
- Go over some of the bigger stories and static of the poker industry (i.e. Black Friday, Full Tilt, WSOP) and get their insights as a professional
- Something else?

2.) If anyone has a cool suggestion for a unique name for the podcast let me know. It could incorporate my name (pronounced Hwong) or just be something clever.

The podcast may start off bi-weekly and based off demand/reviews it may fluctuate, but I really enjoyed doing the Stox Pokercasts and am excited to embark on this new adventure.

For my first episode, I'll be interviewing both the bracelet winners from the CardRunners team. Matt Matros and Eric Rodawig will be on and I plan to ask them questions revolving around their march to the final table as well as their victories.

PLEASE drop me some comments with specific questions that you would like me to present to these guys. It really will help me with the quality of the interviews if you are able to help me.

It's been, admittedly, long overdue but we finally have a convenient and easy-to-use 'add video' function on our blog network.

Just click the little film icon and you will get a pop-up. Copy over the URL to any YouTube video with "Flash" as the selected type and then save. The video itself will show up as a hideous yellow-colored box but once you publish the blog, the video will show up properly.

Anyone want to get some free coaching?

It's easy. Just submit some footage for a Leakfinder video and hear one of our pros analyze your game and address some areas of improvement in your play! It's totally free and all you have to do is take the time to record and upload the software to us.

We're looking for any games (SNG, MTT, Cash), Stakes, or Formats on Any poker site.

If you are interested, I'd be happy to help you with instructions on how to setup the recording and how to get everything up to CardRunners standards.

Feel free to PM or drop a line in the comments.

The stage was set: in one corner was the 2010 WSOP Main Event Runner-Up, another had one of the leaders for most WSOP Bracelets in history, and lastly a lanky banker with a mountain of chips. Shared among them they had 11 WSOP bracelets, tens of millions in cashes, and 3 DUIs. Eric clearly had the shortest resume, but he had the biggest stack and the most experience. This was his title to lose.

Chips were around 2.5M for Eric, 1.26 for Phil, and 1.25 for Racener as blinds began at the 60k/120k/15k level. Racener quickly lost a few pots to both Hellmuth and Eric and was dwindled down to around 2 Big Bets. It seemed like we were going to get heads-up quickly and cheer-on Eric as he tried to stop Hellmuth from winning #12. Little did we know that Bazooka Joe had a bit of resiliency.

Racener would go on to double up through Eric when they got it all in on 3rd. What happened next was crazy.

Racener got it all in on fourth street with Hellmuth. AK/73 for John and A8/64 for Phil. Phil paired his 4 on fifth and John paired his 3 on fifth. Phil ended up drawing 2-8 on 6th and 7th, respectively, and made it two pair and looking very good against John.

One thing I should mention is that 7th street is such a dramatic street in Stud. Players squeeze the cards rather than just looking at what they have and it can make for some pretty tense moments.

So Racener gets his seventh card down and needs either an Ace, King, or 3 to survive in the tournament. Amazingly the 3h comes and he makes trips and ends up scooping the pot from Hellmuth!

This was only setting the stage for the next hand. Racener and Hellmuth get it in again and cards read the following on sixth street:

Racener: AA/4436

Hellmuth: 9h6h/Kh9d4cTh

Hellmuth squeezes the 7h to make his flush. Racener ends up peeling off the A of spades to fill up and make the boat. Even more ridiculous was that we learned Eric folded a 4 in his hand as well, so Racener was really only drawing to 3 outs.

At this point, a man who is sitting behind us in the stands begins talking with us. He was an older gentleman who had clearly had a bit to drink. He talked about how boring the Stud 8/b was due to the lack of a flop. Since the cameras and TV's were aimed at the center of the table, we had to rely on the narration of the cards by the Tournament Director. Cue the drunk guy who proceeds to yell out "This sucks, zoom out! I can't see shit!" Tirelessly, he continued to berate the staff and the tech team for leaving no visual supplement to the railbirds. His ramblings were pretty hilarious, even though they were a bit distracting, and it did prompt one of the tech members to come up and to explain that the cameras were fixed and weren't able to be moved. Nonetheless, his antics added a bit of fun to the slow night.

We go on break shortly after and talk to Eric about who seems to be the more favorable opponent to be playing Heads-Up. On one hand it seemed like Hellmuth would be a great opponent and great theater however his experience was unparalleled. He'd also been on the winning-end of some key pots with Eric earlier in the night.

Shortly after break, Racener lost a big pot to Eric, and Hellmuth would finish him off. The stage was set.

Entering heads up, Eric had a little over 4M chips to Hellmuth's 900,000. With bets at 100k/200k, Eric couldn't have asked for a better situation. A dominating chip-lead against the biggest personality in poker for the title! Eric, never missing a moment to make something a big deal, decides to shift his seat over to the 7 seat so he's sitting directly across from Phil who was in Seat 2.

So you'd think that being on the biggest stage of his life would mean Eric is focused and honing in on Phil right? Instead he's busy checking his phone, browsing 2p2, and Tweeting. In fact, at one point in the Heads-Up play, the Tournament Director told him to take his phone off the rail! Too funny.

At this point, I had been texting Brian Hastings and providing him updates while he was in the other room playing some HSPLO. It looked like the battle wouldn't last long so Stinger came over to sweat, but unfortunately Phil had a couple of chops and double ups and Stinger ended up leaving before the battle was completed.

The ending was pretty anti-climactic. Phil had about two or three big bets and it was just inevitable that he was going to be getting it all in on 3rd or 4th street at any given time. They got it all in with the players holding the following:

Eric: A8/3
Phil: JT/9

Eric would go on to make two pair and Phil had a gutshot draw going into seventh. He paired his Jack and the event was over.

As PokerNews setup the picture ceremony our group stood by the stage to watch. We ended up talking with Phil, Huck Seed, and Jean Robert-Bellande who were chatting by the ropes. We introduced ourselves and they were very gracious and complimentary to Eric's play. Phil was extremely professional and, while obviously very disappointed, he was awesome. The guys talked about how Ted Forrest and Matusow had told them Eric was the worst player in the field, but that they were very impressed with his play. They asked if we wanted to go celebrate somewhere, but we were all tired and hungry and excused ourselves from the invite.

One thing I learned during this trip was that all bracelet winners get upgraded by the Rio to Diamond-Preferred status. This means that Eric will never have to wait in a line at the Rio ever again. As we headed over to American Grille to get some breakfast at 4a, we tried to open up a private dice game. Sadly, the floor didn't oblige due to a shortage of dealers, and so we drank some champagne, ate some breakfast, and we all parted ways to get some rest.

I ended up grabbing a cab to the Aria and going to the desk to get a room. After I booked a room, I walked over to the poker room and sat in a PLO game. To my surprise, I found Phil Hellmuth playing a mixed game at the table next to me! He told me he couldn't sleep after that Final Table so he was just grinding.

Well, fast forward to about 18 hours later. I was still awake, having slept zero hours since landing in Vegas, and I was eating dinner with CR Pros BallzDeepx, and µ(x+t) at the Wynn. I got a text from Eric and we were going to have a dice date at the Aria with Chris (Deuces coach), Eric's wife, Eric, and myself.

We met up at Aria and virtually had the table to ourselves. Eric was teasing us with a Don't Pass Bet, but luckily peer pressure and "Don't be that dick at the table" made him consider otherwise. First to roll was Chris who managed to spike 3 or 4 points as well as rolling about a dozen 10's before crapping out. I was next and threw for a good 15 minutes, hitting 3 or 4 points as well. Enter Mr. and Mrs. Rodawig who throw bricks. Atleast Niki rolled a few times, but Eric bricked a 7 as soon as he established a point and the rest of our table followed suit with shitty rolls. Chris and I gave up after our next rolls leaving the stage for Eric. Of course he rolls for about ten minutes, before counting his monies and yelling "freerollin." He obviously crapped out on the very next roll.

After we cashed in our chips, I left the boys to go catch a bit of sleep before my flight in a few hours. It was an incredible trip and one that I'll remember for a very long time. I'll write more about non-Eric specific items in my next entry, but congratulations to Eric on his feat. What a cool accomplishement.

May 2011: I meet Eric "ChipsAhoya" Rodawig at a Chicago Cubsvs. Cincinnati Reds game at Wrigley field. While sweating the game we talk about the upcoming WSOP, particularlythe tournaments on his radar and his expectations. Eric confidently tells me he's going to gowin the $10k Stud 8/b event because "no one else knows how to play the gamewell." For those of you who don't knowEric, please understand that brash and self-praising compliments are as commonas hearing "epic" or "sick" at a poker table. The dude radiates of confidence but in a hilarious non-douchey way.

Thanks to the Cubs being a horrendous baseball team, Imanaged to win a wager on the Reds with Eric and opted to "let it roll" intohis WSOP tournament package. Thisinitial deposit prompted me to buy a more significant piece his action for theduration of the summer.

11p CT Sunday Night: I go to Pokernews and see that he isstill alive in the $10k Stud 8/b Event at the World Series. No big deal, the field is in their second dayof play but there are still 60+ and only top 16 cash. Of little surprise, the field is completelystacked with multiple bracelets and tens of millions of dollars inwinnings. Negreanu, Juanda, Seidel andHellmuth were just a few of the names remaining in the field as I went to bed.

6a CT Monday Morning: I wake up and check email asusual. To my surprise there is an emailfrom John 'Nicolak" Kim who let me know that Eric was a big chip leader headedto the 3rd Day and that Joe Tehan, another fellow CR Mixed Gamespecialist, was also in sixth place. They were two short of the $30k bubble but both of them were in goodposition.

I immediately begin reading through the live reporting onPokernews, which chronicled Eric's ascent to the top of the chip count. With a 440k first prize, the final table wasno guarantee. Returning for the thirdday were Bill Chen, Cyndy Violette, Ted Forrest, David Benyamine, Justin "BoostedJ"Smith, John Racener, Phil Laak, Phil Hellmuth, and arguably the hottest playeron the planet Erik Seidel.

Through the help of Eric, I was able to book a flight toVegas and be on the ground less than 12 hours after hearing the good news thathe had a chance.

5p MT Monday: Laying over in Salt Lake City, my flight is scheduledto leave in an hour and play had begun at the Rio. Within a matter of 3 hands, two players hadbusted and BoostedJ was the bubble boy. Wewere in the money!

Railing remotely from my laptop in the airport, it seemedthat each time I hit refresh on my browser, another casualty had fallen. Chen, Laak, and Seidel all fell quickly andit looked like this day may be short work. Much to my dismay, our flight wasdelayed an hour!

Fast forward a few hours and I boot up my phone afterlanding in Las Vegas to see that the Final Table had been set. Benyamine, Hellmuth, Tehan, Forrest, Racener,Eric, Ali Eslami, and a random Russian 2p2er made up the Final 8 and Eric hadan enormous chip lead. He had virtually30% of chips in play with eight remaining!

I high-tail it over to the Rio just in time for the start oftheir dinner break. I run into Joe Tehanwho was outside with his wife. Iintroduced myself and we chatted for a bit before I went to the Rio cash gamesand introduced myself to Foldngst8n. Hestepped up from his game and we went to find Eric.

A quesadilla later and we are back to the Final Table. The set was beautiful. ESPN had done a huge upgrade of the stage forthe purposes (I assume) of their live streaming that is being providedonline.



So here we were, on one side ofthe rail was Eric's wife Nikki and several guys from the 2p2 Stud Forum. On the otherside of the stage was Joe's railwith Nicolak, CPar, Knox, Jeff Miller, and several others.

I guess I should take the time to mention that thetelevisions that are mounted above the table are permanently fixated on thecenter of the table, where the flop usually is displayed. Unfortunately for us, the spectators, Stud8/b doesn't have flops. As a result, wehad to listen to the Tournament Director read each street for each player andtry to follow hands in that manner. Moreon this in a subsequent part.

One of the most interesting guys I met during this trip wasChris George, a video instructor at DeucesCracked. He's had a mediocre WSOP that is on the brinkof being tremendous, with cashes in 3 separate 10k World Championship Events ofvarious disciplines. He's a Stud Hispecialist but finished 11th in this Stud 8/b event. A friend of Eric's, he was on the rail allnight and was a great asset. He couldread hands and give us his breakdown of who is likely ahead/behind and what toexpect. Pretty high-level analysis froma guy who obviously knows what he's saying.

My dreams for an All-CardRunners Heads Up Battle For TheBracelet fizzled when Joe busted in 7th place. Play continued on 6-handed for the nextseveral hours despite several stacks being 4-6 Big Bets deep. Lots of all-ins and the nature of a split-potgame contributed to this drag, but Eric was still accumulating chips.

During this time, everyone's favorite Galen "Gakn29"Cranston joined the party and Jeff moved over to sweat Eric with us. Meanwhile, all the Stud guys were gettingbored and began playing Chinese Poker while on the rail.

As the players traded chips back and forth, the consensus byour little posse was that the worst player to accumulate chips was TedForrest. We all felt that Ted wouldpresent the largest hurdle for Eric and thought that any of the other guyswould be significantly easier.

Finally we lost another casualty and the Russian bustedout. Forrest and Benyamine followed soonafter and we were left with Hellmuth, Racener, and Eric (who had almost half ormore chips in play).

I'll wrap this first part of the blog up with Eric entering3-handed play. I'd also like to mentionthat if you thought Erica Schoenberg was out of Benyamine's league, you shouldsee his current girlfriend. Same goesfor Ted Forrest, who apparently is following in the footsteps of BarryGreenstein in having a thing for young Asian women.

Part 2 to come in a few days chronicling the 3-handed Playand HU match vs Hellmuth.

Two CR pros are deep in the 10k Stud 8/b event. Eric Rodawig and Joe Tehan are both in the money with $440k to the first place winner.

Given that I bought a piece of Eric, I felt it was a good enough excuse to go out and sweat him as he enters the final day with the big chip lead. I'll be meeting up with a bunch of CR Pros while I'm out there too!

Pictures and Tweets galore, stay tuned...

I decided to by-pass a trip to Vegas this summer due to being so busy with weddings, golf, and work so I'm instead sitting here watching Rory McIlroy run away with the U.S. Open.

To scratch the itch of wanting to play a bunch of poker, I went and played some at the local casino the last few nights. I played in a fairly dead PLO game the first night and a juicy mixed half-NLHE half-PLO game yesterday.

I am admittedly a little rusty in my NLHE game and played a bit nittier than I would have preferred but the PLO games have been great. With Friday nights being some of the busiest nights, the mixed game attracted a lot of NLHE players who didn't feel like waiting an hour or two on the list. They made some pretty elementary PLO mistakes.

It's pretty baffling how bad some people are. One NLHE reg potted the flop of Q83hh and then potted another 70% of his stack when the 9h turned and called off to a reraise. The reraiser had AThh and got an easy double up. This happened all night!

Unfortunately the cards weren't in it for me and most the big pots I played I lost. Here are a few that I lost where pots exceeded 500BBs or more:

T567 on a 89K board AIPF 3-ways with KK and 88
KJ98 on a QT7r board against AQxx where I picked up a flush draw on turn too
4567 on a 237 board against AAQJ and KKKJ

I'm contemplating going tonight if the game is running again but the smokiness of the poker room is really irritating. I'd love to erase the small loss that I took over the two nights but I may just take it easy tonight or catch a movie.

Golf season is in full swing and the year is looking full of promise.

I've played about 10 or so rounds at my club this year and have managed to not shoot higher than 77 so far. Unfortunately I haven't done much in the way of breaking par and haven't managed to shoot a sub-70 round just yet. The Club's first event starts tomorrow with a two-man member-member. Unfortunately the event is a handicap event so I stand little to no-shot at winning, but the format of the event makes for a worthwhile entry.

9 holes 2-man scramble: Everyone hits a shot, you take the best one, and both partners hit the shot from there.

9 holes 2-man modified Alternate shot: You both hit tee shots on the hole. Choose one and play alternate shot the rest of the way. Rinse and repeat on the next tee.

9 hole best ball: You both play your own ball and then take the best score as your team score

9 hole two ball: You both play your own ball and then combine both scores

The last 9 holes will be the maker for my team. I recruited a guy with about a 5-handicap so we are at a severe disadvantage from the standpoint of getting shots, but it also means that we have a huge edge if teams choke coming in Sunday afternoon. Guys who shoot 90s+ can't have their partner bail them out when they hit it in the hazards or out of bounds and there'll (hopefully) be some huge numbers carded that will even out the field. Additionally, most of these guys aren't accustomed to having to tap in every 3-footer because they are so lenient with gimmes in their regular games. It may not seem hard to sink a 3 foot putt with regularity, but it's pretty amazing how difficult it can be - especially when there is some pressure on your shoulders.

I've made some adjustments to my game over the last few weeks and I have seen some considerable improvements. I've had a few rounds where some near-misses turned a potentially great round into a solid round. A little more work on the mid-range putting and I think that I can get over the hump and start stringing together some great rounds.

I think I may play in the USGA Mid-Am and US Amateur qualifiers this year if I feel good enough about my game.

I'll try to Tweet some updates for those who care during the round. You can follow me here @alexjhuang

Edit: Some of these predictions look rigged since I posted this a little late (wrote it up pre WSOP)

Here are my predictions for the WSOP with no rhyme or reason:

- I expect two to win 2 bracelets this year.
- If I picked 5 horses for the WSOP, it would be: Mercier, Negreanu, Timex, Eugene Katchalov, and Chad Brown. I have reasons and rationale for all of them including being highly-motivated, highly-energized, and having been a dedicated student of the game for 2010. I'll let you figure out which applies to each player.
- I bet 1 woman ships a bracelet this year in a non-Women's-only Event.
- A few picks for bracelets this year aside from the Horses above: Justin Young, Alexander Kostristyn, Dwan, Phil Laak, Faraz Jaka, Yan Chen, Justin Young, and Annette Obrestad
- Attendance will be > 5500 at WSOP Main Event (no I'm not taking bets)
- Two bracelets for CR Pros this year. Not sure who or in what game.
- 10 CR Final Tables by pros and 3 by higher-profile members

Of course I plan to win a bracelet here in a few weeks too. Or to atleast pad the 3200% ROI in Vegas :P