Poker Stories: Mike Watson

Barny Boatman spent much of his youth traveling the world, living in numerous countries and working a variety of jobs that included factory worker, bartender, journalist, English teacher, computer programmer, board game inventer, and even movie reviewer. But it was in the poker world that he found his true calling.  The London-born player graduated from home games with his brother Ross to bigger games with fellow Brits Joe Beevers and Ram Vaswani, forming what would later be known as 'The Hendon Mob.' Now a tournament database site, the Hendon mob would previously travel the tournament circuit together, and was featured prominently on England's 'Late Night Poker' television series shortly before the poker boom.  Boatman earned the respect of his peers in the states with three consecutive final tables at the World Series of Poker. There were plenty of close calls, but he finally nabbed gold in 2013 in a $1,500 no-limit event for $546,080. Boatman earned his second bracelet two years later in Germany, taking down a €550 pot-limit Omaha event at the WSOP Europe series. He's added another five WSOP final tables in the last couple of years, including a runner-up showing at the 2023 WSOP Europe €1,650 no-limit six-max event.  Most recently, he found the winner's circle at the 2024 EPT Paris series, pocketing a career best $1.4 million for taking down the €5,300 main event. As a result, the 68-year-old has become the oldest European Poker Tour champion in history, and is now a member of Team PokerStars as a brand ambassador.Highlights from this interview include what's in a name, the Archway game, getting expelled from school, channel cyberia and mystic monk, poker TV pioneer, the isle of man tournament with John Duthie, being a logo, accidentally creating a database, going broke on his first trip to Vegas, a regretable hand against Hasan Habib, a three-hour heads-up battle for a bracelet, dealing with insomnia, game ethics, charcoal portraits, the crooning punk, humor from Victoria Coren-Mitchell, four-day cash game sessions, and being mistaken for a dead guy.

Alex Fitzgerald has been a poker professional for half of his life, turning to the game when he was just 18 years old. In the nearly two decades since, Fitzgearld has racked up millions in online winnings with final tables on the World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour.  But unlike many other top players, he has also shared his knowledge, taking on students of all levels and steering them towards a better game. In fact, Fitzgerald has worked with more than a thousand players over the years, diagnosing their play, finding the leaks and plugging them so they can start winning fast.  Fitzgerald is also an author, writing The Myth Of Poker Talent, Exploitative Play In Live Poker, and The 100 Biggest Mistakes That Poker Players Make. Players looking for help can visit PokerHeadRush.com for Fitzgerald's free poker strategy newsletter and three training videos.Highlights from this interview include a not-so-deadliest catch, playing cards on the boat, why poker beat Arby's, being a poker doctor, writing books to get people fired up, talent vs. hard work, the moneyball of poker, humans being human, long-distance running, from death metal to rap battles, Christmas in Prague, and the 49-hour home game.

David Sklansky is perhaps the most prolific poker writer ever, and an all-around authority on all things gambling. The author of titles such as The Theory of Poker, Small Stakes Hold'em, DUCY?, Geeking, Grifting, And Gambling, and the latest, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em: Help Them Give You Their Money, is one of the few authors to simultaneously hold three spots on Amazon's top 100 bestsellers list.  The 76-year-old is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, and also took down the Poker By The Book invitational event on the World Poker Tour. When he wasn't gambling for a living, whether it was on poker, sports, or blackjack, Sklansky worked as a casino advisor. Not only did he invent the foundation for Caribbean Stud, but the 'resident wizard' famously convinced Bob Stupak to build the Stratosphere tower on the Las Vegas Strip.  Highlights from this interview include being the black sheep in a family of geniuses, logic puzzles from dad, the Ivy League poker game, being an 'insufferable' math rebel, hi-lo split declare, putting pen to paper in 1976, poker theory back to Neumann and Nash, being a GTO deviant, getting barred as a blackjack player, taking advantage of bad casino math, scheming with Bob, changing the Las Vegas Strip skyline, getting a state senator elected but losing a fixed race for mayor, a $30 million caribbean stud loss, challenging Donald Trump to a $1 million board game, matching JK Rowling, signing autographs for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, owning two unique pieces of WSOP history, being the ultimate third wheel, the $1 million briefcase, Sklansky bucks vs. implied odds, avoiding a punch from Floyd Mayweather, and all five times he was held at gunpoint.

Wolfgang is a relative newcomer to the poker world, but that hasn't stopped him from finding a huge audience with his short-form vlogs. The Chicago native and Texas resident has a background in video production and editing which he has used leapfrog other top content creators to become one of the most watched poker players on the planet.The 29-year-old has seen a meteoric rise over the last year and recently became the first poker vlogger ever to reach one million subscribers on YouTube. He has racked up hundreds of millions of views overall while passing industry giants such as Brad Owen, Doug Polk, and even Daniel Negreanu, all while playing low-stakes cash games.  Highlights from this interview include joining the seven-figure club, completely missing the poker boom, Ukrainian dancing and German lessons, christian school degenerates, streaking Nutella butts, giving the algorithm what it wants, creating new players, Pokemon vs. fossils, making teachers go viral, red-card pantsing and game-winning headers, sweating a million dollar buy-in, smoothies with McDreamy, and why Justin Beiber fired him from a commercial shoot.

Jeff Sluzinski, a content creator and pro better known to his viewers as Jeff Boski, was one of the pioneer poker vloggers on YouTube. In the last six years, the ACR Poker ambassador has built a sizable audience, posting more than 600 videos and racking up millions of views.Originally from Michigan, Boski has been a professional poker player for the better part of the last two decades, having discovered the game during the early 2000's boom. He gambled on his future, moving to Las Vegas with just $10,000 in his bankroll, and he hasn't looked back since. Boski is currently having one of his best years ever, picking up wins both live and online, while also holding his own against some of the best high roller players in the game today.Highlights from this interview include dealing with oil patterns and too much torque, striking out in calculus, talking people out of their money, upsetting the boss' daughter, turning around a $1,000 per day loss, how dog videos turned into a poker vlog, talking his way into an online poker sponsorship, having his own tournament on ACR, winning his way to Vietnam, playing Triton high rollers, Spock honesty, being a strip club affiliate, visualizing a Magic: The Gathering championship, Lil Dicky So Hard, ziplining backwards in Costa Rica, and enjoying the simulation in harmony.

It took less than four years for Jesse Lonis to climb from $200 tournaments to competing in high rollers with the best players in the world. The New York native kickstarted his career with a World Poker Tour final table in 2021 at the Lucky Hearts Poker Open and then followed it up with a deep run in the WSOP main event, taking 25th place overall. In 2022, the former construction worker won a bracelet in the WSOP Online series, and nearly added a second that summer while also making two final tables at the WPT World Championship series.But the 28-year-old has put together his best year in 2023. In January he finished third in the $25,000 high roller at the Hard Rock in South Florida for $260,000 and then added another $370,000 with a win at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. This summer, he made a last-minute decision to play in the $50,000 pot-limit Omaha championship and broke through for his second bracelet and a massive payday of $2.3 million. He now has $6 million in career earnings.Highlights from this interview include new births, being the Longfellow Deeds of his hometown, watching grandma play Full Tilt, working construction "like a dog in a cage," following in Gilly's footsteps, a long and brutal stay at Circus Circus, being an old school player, ging broke and coming back, where he keeps the bracelets, jumping into a $50k event, big sports bets, J-Lo, CCR, and bird presentations.

Daniel Weinman topped the biggest World Series of Poker main event field in history, outlasting more than 10,000 entrants. Incredibly, he almost didn't play in the event and had to be convinced by friends, including six-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb, to fly back from his native Atlanta, Georgia for the tournament.It was Weinman's second career bracelet, having won his first in 2022 on the way to finishing second in the WSOP Player of the Year race. And despite winning a first-place prize of $12.1 million, Weinman was back at his day job the next week, working as a software engineer for RF Poker, a company that facilitates the operation and security of poker livestreams.Although he focused on cash games for much of his career, Weinman also has a WSOP Circuit ring, and two World Poker Tour titles. In 2017 he won the Borgata Winter Open and followed that up a few months later with a season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions victory.Highlights from this interview include sweating the Wall Street trader game as a kid, playing 24 tables at once, getting robbed at a home game, too much Chinese poker, winning a WPT with his back against the wall, taking a 9-to-5 'poker' job after winning his first bracelet, livestream integrity, how he got talked into the main event, how a two-outer saved more than just his tournament, the reluctant acceptance of added attention, getting his face on a trading card, plans for the bracelet, broken putters, getting fired from the movie theater for beating his manager, golfing with professional athletes and Trump, and how he started his bankroll by being one of the best guitar hero players in the world.

Shaun Deeb was just 16 when he fell in love with poker, hosting tournaments at his home in New York. It wasn't long before he was focusing more on cards than school, and Deeb found himself quickly rising the ranks among the best online players in the world, reaching no. 1 in 2009.In the live arena, Deeb has done most of his damage at the World Series of Poker. Not only is he in an elite group of just 22 players with at least six bracelets, but he is consistently one of the best performers each summer in the WSOP Player of the Year race. In fact since 2015, Deeb has finished in sixth place or better six times! In total, he has racked up more than $13.5 million in live tournament earnings during his career, to go along with millions more won online.Deeb finished in second place in this summer's WSOP POY race, but also has four other wins in 2023, putting him in the top 20 of the year-long POY race as well. The 37-year-old has done it while also working on a weight-loss prop bet with Bill Perkins that will earn him a seven-figure payout if he can get down to 17 percent body fat by next summer's series.  Highlights from this interview include growing dreadlocks to lose body fat percentage, how WSOP main event champ Dan Weinman saved his summer, winning a circuit ring for his chicken fingers, 'retiring' after burn out, a team wafflecrush update, investing in a sub franchise over daily fantasy sports, letting Gus Hansen take his million dollar seat, being a 'foot-on-the-gas-type' player, slowrolling Mike Matusow, why Max Heinzelmann cost him Ben Lamb's money, not being afraid to speak his mind, passing his sparkly black crown to Ian Matakis, hating all music and refusing to dance, losing 5/6ths of a $200,000 pot, the biggest open face Chinese games, passing on the family restaurant business, 50-hour sessions, and undercooked chicken as a murder weapon.

Mike Gorodinsky is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, who is coming off a summer where he took down the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship for $422,747. The Russian-born pro, who was raised in St. Louis, Missouri, won his first bracelet back in 2013, taking down the $2,500 Omaha and stud eight-or-better mix event. But Gorodinsky's biggest score remains the $1,270,086 he pocketed for winning the 2015 $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Although the 37-year-old has the resume of a tournament pro, with more than $4.2 million in cashes and the title of 2015 WSOP Player of the Year, he is also a feared cash game player. The mixed-games master spent years competing in some of the biggest cash games spread in the world, battling it out with the best players in Bobby's Room in Las Vegas for stakes as high as $4,000-$8,000Highlights from this episode include the move from St. Petersburg to St. Louis, eloping in Greece, drunk 1 a.m. online sessions, learning bankroll management the hard way, buying a car with all of his winnings, the online tournament that kept him in poker, a love for literature, an office in Tijuana, battling for high-stakes with Phil Ivey, million-dollar swings, the 'detriment' of having his own action, an 'unpleasant' loss to Phil Hellmuth, a weird history with the Poker Players Championship, giving away his bracelets, buy-in inflation, poker personalities, New Zealand restaurant games, fake beef with Doyle Brunson and the gift of the unlucky sweater.

Jose Ignacio "Nacho" Barbero was a top-ranked, world-traveling card player long before he ever found poker. The Argentinian discovered the game Magic: The Gathering as a teen, and he was soon leading the national team in global competitions.  After six years as a Magic pro, Barbero made the switch to poker. He broke out in 2010, scoring two of his three Latin American Poker Tour victories along with a win in the EPT London high roller for nearly $900,000. In the years since, he has continued to put up consistent results, while also competing in some of the biggest cash games around.  The last year has been incredibly profitable for Barbero on the felt. In the summer, he won his first gold WSOP bracelet and $587,000. Then in February, he finished fourth at the PokerStars Players Championship for a career-best $1.55 million. After a win and a runner-up showing at the Triton Vietnam series for $1.06 million, and a win in the PokerGO PLO series, Barbero now sits in first place in the 2023 Card Player Player of the Year race.Highlights from this interview include soccer distractions, the collapse of the Argentinian economy, getting saved by Magic, living in France, having his own sports card, losing big his first online session, winning his first live tournament, getting a poker sponsorship, live reads, a crypto disaster, the comeback begins, a huge final table mistake, catching a very important flight, winning a $500,000 pot from a billionaire, teaching Pokemon, and losing a bitcoin at the UFC.