If you would have told 21-year-old me that I’d someday get to be in the same room with those two legends, I’d be beside myself. Hell, 41-year-old me typing up these words still can’t believe I had that opportunity just a few short hours ago.

You might be asking yourself, “what was so special about that opportunity?”

There’s an old saying that you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. As much as the 2023 WPT Honors ceremony was about the honorees, in my eyes it was similarly about the group that assembled to pay tribute to said honorees.

A Ceremony Like No Other

A good deal of pomp and circumstance went into the ceremonial aspects of the event, with numerous individuals stepping up to the podium to “make the case” for each nominee’s worthiness of receiving the WPT Honors to the dutifully bespectacled and robed WPT President Adam Pliska. The World Poker Tour might be unrivaled in our industry when it comes to putting on special events like these, and to have had a seat at the ceremony was akin to witnessing a very special episode of poker’s greatest show.

After Angelica Hael officially nominated Vince Van Patten, a parade of World Poker Tour stalwarts including Matt Savage, Lynn Gilmartin, Tony Dunst, and company Founder Steve Lipscomb ascended to the mic to heap oodles of praise upon their longtime colleague and friend. Beyond their obvious outpouring of love and appreciation for the man, what stood out to me from the speeches about Vince was his colleagues’ admiration for his work ethic. Plainly speaking, the man showed up every single day and just put in the work. But Vince hasn’t just “clocked in” for 21 years; he’s done so with the same vim, vigor, and joie de vivre with which he showed up on his first day. A rare quality, to be sure.

Ever humble, Vince deflected the praise to in turn show appreciation for his World Poker Tour colleagues and the late Mike Sexton; the people who helped and supported him along the way. In response to the deluge of kind words spoken about him, he humorously quipped that “this is like attending your own funeral.”

I couldn’t help but draw direct lines of comparison to the reactions when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Major League Baseball’s consecutive games streak years ago; a veritable poker Iron Man was getting his due. How sublime for someone who has worked so hard for so long to enjoy such a special moment of public appreciation.

A similar cavalcade comprised of Jeffrey Haas, Hermance Blum, Lance Bradley, Israel Rosenthal, and Sven Stiel took to the stage one by one to express their gratitude and appreciation for Isai Scheinberg’s contributions specifically to their careers as well as to poker on the whole.

From my perspective, it was astounding to note the attendance of so many former PokerStars employees who had worked under Scheinberg until the then-privately owned company was sold in August 2014. It’s simply surreal to think that one man was ultimately responsible for putting together such an impressive array of talent. All of those people have since moved on to other successful endeavors and roles in the subsequent years, many still within the poker industry. But witnessing “the old PokerStars family” reunite under one roof felt like watching the Avengers assemble.

They spoke of Isai’s three simple, straightforward rules: never lie, never cheat, and always do the right thing. While simple, rules like those aren’t always easy to adhere to in an industry with billions of dollars at stake, as history has taught us.

Scheinberg has always been notorious for his preference of privacy. The entire poker world knows of his accomplishments, but the great man rarely, if ever, surfaced publicly. Being at the 2023 WPT Honors ceremony to see Isai accept his award felt like being transported to PokerStars’ headquarters prior to 2014; a place full of people who never lied, never cheated, and always did the right thing. No wonder it proved to be such a successful venture.

While fish may be surrounded by water, they still rise to the surface when it rains to welcome new droplets. So, too, the entire room full of luminaries could be seen leaning in to listen closely to the soft-spoken Scheinberg during the latter’s acceptance speech. It was a telling moment.

Reflections From Fellow Attendees

Reader can clearly identify my long-held esteem for both the World Poker Tour and PokerStars, but I’ve always been an outsider and independent media voice. So, in order to gain a greater understanding and appreciation for what I had borne witness to, I asked a few insiders who worked with Vince and for Isai, to share their thoughts and perspectives on the evening. Here’s what they had to say:

“There are two men in my life who have been incredible role models of what it means to be an honest entrepreneur. One of them was my late father; the other is Isai Scheinberg. I didn’t think that I was going to get into the world of gambling and learn more about honesty than I had learned before in my life as a journalist. Isai taught me that you can be a good businessman and you could be a good person at the same time. He was more generous with me than any other boss or company owner ever has been, and I think he is worthy of every honor he’s been given and more.”

Brad Willis, Editor-in-Chief of Poker.Org, formerly the Head of Blogging at PokerStars

“Both of these gentlemen have meant so much to me in my poker career. Isai doesn’t realize it, but of course being a part of the poker industry just would not have been the same without Isai Scheinberg. I want to thank him. He hasn’t received the accolades that he deserves; I think he should of course be in the Poker Hall of Fame.

And I think that Vince Van Patten deserves recognition for all that he’s done for the game. It’s not very often that you see someone who has been around in the game for as long as he has been. He’s become like family to me, so I speak from the heart: we’ve spent a lot of time together sharing our passion for poker. I really appreciate everything both of these guys have done.”

Matt Savage, Executive Tour Director of the World Poker Tour

“I’ve been in poker for just over seven years. It’s incredible to hear the historical stories and learn how our industry has evolved. We get into our positions these days and de facto only think about our current time and present roles. To go back and see the history is just incredible. There are so many stories from the people who came before us, and it’s important to appreciate them.”

Eric Lusch, Media Relations Manager with the World Poker Tour

“I have not been to a poker event since 2016. The only reason I came tonight was because of Isai Scheinberg. All the things that have been said about him; it wasn’t enough, about what this man taught me and what he taught everybody in the room. Not just about business and about poker, but about life and how to treat people the right way.

The emotion that I feel tonight is because of the sense of community that I’m feeling and don’t remember poker having had for a very long time. I miss it. The World Poker Tour was always the rival to the organization that I worked for… and I didn’t realize until tonight just how super cool the people who work for the World Poker Tour are, from the top down… and there’s no such thing as ‘down’ with them! Everybody’s got an important role to play in the World Poker Tour. I’m so impressed with the WPT, what they’ve done tonight, the sense of camaraderie they have, and the love they have for each other.

When we talk about playing poker, sitting around a table, and competing to take each other’s money… the game is about more than that. It’s about the friendships, and the love, and the trust, and the lessons you learn from one another. Even though I was here for just two hours tonight, I came away with a great sense of energy.”

Nolan Dalla, former Director of Communications at PokerStars

The Coolest-Ever Poker After-Party

Poker.org owner Eric Hollreiser, himself a former PokerStars employee, hosted a swanky afterparty in one of the Wynn ballrooms that featured an open bar, flowing chocolate fondue fountains, and the most succulent strawberries to delight our tastebuds as we mingled to mellifluous music. Designed to orchestrate a reunion of former PokerStars employees, many World Poker Tour personages could also be found among the attendees.

You can tell a lot about people by the folks they surround themselves with.

I hesitate to use the word “magic”, but there was something indescribably unique in the air throughout last night’s festivities.

I suppose that’s what happens when the spotlight shines on poker’s best. The entire room lights up.

NO! You are the guy who was NOT supposed to ever get up from the table. You are the guy who can tell the story again and again and it won’t matter if/that we’ve heard it before because your storytelling is do damn spellbinding. You are the guy who I don’t care how long he lingers at the table… because if you’re still there it means you’re already crafting your next story, and I want to hear that story, too!

I LOVE that guy.

I want to read more stories. I want to keep falling in love with poker over and over and over again by reading your words. I’m secretly hoping that you did actually pen those 10,000 words you alluded to in your goodbye post so that I could perhaps get a copy and savor them privately at my desk.

I suppose I knew this was inevitable, as I’ve been seeing fewer and fewer Brad Willis bylines over the last couple years, and the main updates I’d see from you were the beautiful pictures of your boys on the baseball diamond. But I knew you were always there — still with a seat at the table.

I’m surprised you didn’t hear my very audible “NO!” all the way in Greenville, South Carolina when I saw the Tweet and article with your announcement. Miriam ran out of her (home) office asking me “what happened?!” and I told her. She gave me a much needed hug.

This week we say so long to @BradWillis, the founder and all round icon of everything PokerStars Blog, signing off after 18 years…https://t.co/9cggh5er2T pic.twitter.com/MMnO7nm4C2

— PokerStars Blog (@PokerStarsBlog) July 12, 2022

We only met in person that one time, in January 2016 at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. That was actually the first poker event I ever attended. What a special time that was. What precious joy I had in buying you that Kalik. A small token of love and appreciation for the joy your work had brought me over the previous years.

I’ve always said that my two poker writing inspirations were you and Nolan Dalla. I never dared to think of myself in the same league as either of you, as I’ve always wished that what I brought to the table possessed that special magic you have to captivate and enthrall.

I have no idea what’s next for you, Brad, but at only 48 years young, as much as you’ve done and accomplished, I know your best years are yet to come.

Helen of Troy may have had a face that launched 1,000 ships, but Brad’s pen launched this man’s heart into the poker stratosphere 1,000 times. That heart is a little broken today.

READ MORE: Get to Know the Poker Media — Brad Willis

May Gd will it such that I someday have the privilege of sitting with you at a poker table… or any other table. That will be a great day.

Wishing you only blessings, Brad. Thanks for everything, always.

Further Reading

Please take the time to read some of Brad’s incredible work.

The 40-event series began this past Sunday, November 8, and will continue running until the “Last Chance” event next week Tuesday, November 17. Half of the events will be high buy-in affairs, to be complemented by “mini buy-in” counterparts, such that players with bankrolls of all sizes can take part in the festivities.

While there’s plenty of great poker action to look forward to, this newest evolution of the EPT also gives us the opportunity to look back at the fabled series and what’s made it so great over the years.

A Rich History

The European Poker Tour is one of the longest-tenured tournament series in the world, having begun in Barcelona in 2004, the year after Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Over its 16 years of existence, there have been 126 EPT Festivals held. Save for two instances, there’s been a different Main Event winner each time, the lone exceptions being Mikalai Pobal and Vicky Coren. A true sign of its prestige, the EPT has awarded an astounding 163 prizes  worth at least $1 million, creating scores upon scores of millionaires over the past decade and a half plus.

To gain a deeper appreciation for everything the EPT has stood for since its inception, we asked a number of longtime PokerStars stalwarts to share their best memories of the series during their tenure with the company.

Head of PokerStars Blog, Brad Willis:

• During Season 2, the EPT had started to become an attraction for Americans, especially some of the young guys who were just coming up in the game. Everybody online already knew Jason Strasser, but the door men at The Vic did not. On the first day of the Main Event, Strasser walks up to the front door. I’m nearby and hear a quiet discussion that grows slightly less quiet as Strasser discovers he’s not going to be allowed entry because he’s wearing a pair of sandals and not fit for The Vic’s dress code. Strasser seemed to genuinely think they were kidding with him, but he eventually came to realize he only had one choice. He walked back out onto the London streets in his sandals, found the nearest cobbler, and bought himself a pair of proper shoes. He made it back before the end of Level 1. Not for nothing, today Strasser is the chief investment officer of an investment management firm and only plays poker recreationally. And he wears really nice shoes.

Department Head of Central Event Operations, Hilda Ingham:

I love the live events because we create something which makes players, dealers, media and us happy. I guess looking at all this there is one thing that connects it all – it is the people. The greatest memory of the EPT, while we can’t have the EPT Live, is the people, the community and the fun. The EPT family.

• Jason Mercier winning EPT San Remo in 2008. This final table was just epic with so many regular EPT players on it – William Thorson, Dario Minieri, Jason – it has to be one of my all-time fave final tables. He then made the second final table in Barcelona (Sebastian won). He was truly an incredible poker player and one of the nicest and smartest people I have ever met. In his High Roller London Final Table I think I actually cried!

• A certain celeb player thought it would be hilarious to put the glass EPT trophy on their head just before final table play. As he did this the bottom of the trophy broke off – cue much running around searching for super glue – luckily we pulled it off in time for the final table filming to commence!
• An American mother who had not been able to get in touch with her son contacted us via support and they got in touch with me. The guy was playing his first EPT and it was the first time he had been to Europe, and she was worried after not speaking to him all day. Well we all wanted to make this poor crying woman happy, so me and a bunch of colleagues set about tracking the player down. We discovered he was having the best time of his life and had met a load of new friends and was out having a lot of fun with them.
• The Dortmund EPT after-party hosted by the casino – there were live snakes. Need I say more?
• Oddly, I now look back in fondness at the food – people always have an idea travelling is glamourous – whereas more often than not it is standing in the snow outside Copenhagen Casino eating a hotdog from the 24-hour garage, which is the only place still open when the tournament finally finishes for the day. But we were in it together and the camaraderie of eating dinner at 3am while standing in a garage can never be forgotten.

PokerStars Blog Manager Stephen Bartley:

• The most obvious thing to me was how quickly things changed on the EPT. For instance, in the early days there was no such thing as a press room. The press who were there (and there weren’t many) found a corner of the casino and worked with their laptops perched on their knees. The interaction with the players was different, too. Most players were relatively unknown, except those who had been on Late Night Poker or on TV in the US. I once carried pages of notes around with me with players faces on them so I could identify players. The look of confusion on their face when you asked for their name was common. As if it were the most bizarre thing in the world to have someone write about a hand they’d just played. But a season or two later it was standard to see dozens of journalists and TV cameras with players at the breaks. Sometimes having booked an appointment. It was part of the expansion of the tour that had switched from casinos to conference centres, and to a global audience. There was even complimentary coffee in the press room.

Members of the PokerStars blogging team working at a live event

• It was fascinating being in the middle of the poker world watching it evolve. If the first seasons were a chance for existing players to win big, before long it became a stage for new players, younger and from the online game, to start taking over. Everything changed. Not just the faces but the language. I remember sitting in the hotel lobby in Warsaw (it was too cold to go out). Two young players were with us, one extremely well known, the other known online but not really on the live poker tour, who’d just made his live poker debut. They’d each been demolishing opponents in front of us and now they were talking shop. But they spoke about the game in such a forensic way that it was impossible to keep up. It was an incredible sight. Two guys at the height of their powers, demolishing opponents who had until recently been considered the best. We tried to follow the conversation, but it was hopeless. The game was evolving right in front of us. All we could do was try not to be left behind.

PokerStars Ambassadors Have Fond EPT Memories, Too

Chris Moneymaker: Bungee jumping in Sochi, losing a bet and having to swim in some European sea in the coldest water that ever existed on earth, having my wife and father with me in Monaco, and racing Liv Boeree down a slide to explain gravity (I don’t know why I was picked).

Andre Akkari: My favourite moment was in the EPT Barcelona when I saw QQ, 5 left, all in, against AQ. My worst moment was the river!

Kalidou Sow: My best moment, I’m three left on the EPT Prague, I have top straight against bottom straight, and my opponent goes all in…

Fintan Hand: Being on the rail for my mate’s third place finish in London

Fintan Hand with fellow railbirds at the EPT | Image credit: Danny Maxwell

Felix Schneiders: My favourite moment will be the ‘Every time the seven is coming’ with Dönig and Watnlos. Literally everyone on Twitch thinks of it when they see a 7 hitting hard on the felt.

Looking Forward

Naturally, there are oodles and oodles of memories associated with the European Poker Tour, and the live event series is sure to return in a big way in the future once “the coast is clear” pandemic-wise. In the meanwhile, new memories and moments are set to be made in this first-ever online version of the EPT.

As mentioned a score of high buy-in events will be mirrored by a score of low-buy-in events, featuring contests in NL Hold’em, PLO, 6+ Hold’em, and 8-Game. Tens of millions of dollars in guaranteed prize pools will be sure to attract legions of players, eager to win the famous “spadies” (physical trophies will be sent to all the event winners) and become part of poker lore.

For the fans, just as with the Stadium Series and WCOOP that took place earlier this year, the EPT Online will also feature cards-up coverage, brought to you by the legendary commentary team of James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton.

Six days of streaming start today…#EPTOnline pic.twitter.com/YLVyZXGRHZ

— James Hartigan (@J_Hartigan) November 11, 2020

You guys!! The first EVER European Poker Tour ONLINE festival is underway, and me and @J_Hartigan and a bunch of legit superstars (@GriffinBenger, @SquidPoker, @MariaHo) will be covering it LIVE – same as it ever was.

That live coverage starts NOW! https://t.co/ZRxadcNatd

— Joe Stapleton (@Stapes) November 11, 2020

For those of you looking to tune in to the coverage, you can see the full broadcast schedule below.

A soft-spoken man of immense talent, Willis is to poker what Grantland Rice was to sports, the preeminent scribe whose powers of storytelling seemingly know no bounds.

Though he makes his home in small-town America, Willis has traveled the globe documenting tale after tale of success and heartbreak at the poker tables. Much like a gifted sculptor can mold a mound of clay into a superb creation, Brad is able to spin masterpieces out of seemingly any trivial series of events. Undeniably, Willis’ finest poker work shines forth when he captures the magic of the human spirit as it transcends the felt. On numerous occasions, his words have moved me to tears.

An award-winning broadcast journalist prior to his entering the poker world, Willis was given the nod by the poker industry as well in 2015 as the first recipient of the American Poker Award for Content of the Year. A true man of the media, Willis’ work hasn’t been limited to poker writing; indeed, he has also served as a commentator and guest on numerous TV, internet, and radio shows.

Best known as the Head of Blogging at PokerStars, any fan of Brad’s work could dig up the aforementioned information about him with nominal effort. But what of the man behind the byline? What does he do when he’s not crafting poker stories and regaling us with testaments of the tournament triumphs he witnesses?

Beyond a limitless appreciation for the joy and entertainment he’s brought me over the years through his work, I must profess that Brad’s is the gold standard I strive for in my own poker writing. On the couple occasions I’ve felt bold enough to ask for his opinion on articles I’ve written, my heart jumped when he gave me the figurative thumbs up.

Having wanted to meet him for years, I finally got my chance at the 2016 PCA. That week, I toiled in the presence of greatness; I shook the hand of the rock star. Brad was kind enough to let me buy him a beer one night. That precious evening we spent bonding in one of the Atlantis lobbies will live on in my mind and heart forever.

Similarly, I’m grateful for the opportunity to interview a man in the poker world who I hold in the highest regard. What an honor it is to have Brad Willis’ words grace the pages of my Cardplayer Lifestyle poker blog as part of our Get to Know the Poker Media series.

How did you first get into the business of poker writing and for how long have you been doing it?

Before poker writing became a business for me, it was something I did for fun. I played a lot of cards, and because I spent a lot of my free time writing about my life, I ended up writing a lot about poker. In 2004, PokerStars had decided it wanted someone to blog about the 2005 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. At the time, PokerStars was friendly with actor and writer Wil Wheaton. The brass asked him to take the writing gig, but his schedule didn’t allow it. Though we didn’t know each other at the time, it turned out that he had read some of my writing. He recommended me for the job. At the time, I was a TV news reporter working the crime beat.

After Lee Jones asked me to go to the PCA, I took a week of vacation from my real job and went to the Bahamas. At the end of that week, PokerStars was apparently impressed and asked me if I’d consider working with them full-time. A few days later, I was on the phone with Isai Scheinberg. Two weeks later, I was at EPT Copenhagen. Now, 12 years later, here we are.

Prior to researching this piece, I mistakenly believed that you’d only done poker writing for PokerStars as their Head of Blogging. I noticed, however, that you used to do freelance work for outlets like Up for Poker, All In Magazine, and others. Which of those freelance gigs you used to do back in the day was your favorite?

Up For Poker was by far the most fun, simply because it was little more than two of my good friends and I writing about our low-rolling poker exploits. My friend CJ created the site, and we wrote for years about our silly Vegas trips. We made some money doing it, but we would’ve done it even without getting paid. Beyond that, however, our involvement with that introduced us to a motley group of low-rollers who also wrote about poker.

We all ended up playing online in private tournaments, taking trips together, and organizing an annual convention, of sorts. It was all very organic, and many of those people have become close friends of mine. We jokingly referred to it as the World Poker Blogger Tour (WPBT), a name that has stuck for more than a decade and boasts more than a hundred “members.” The group still does an annual trip every December.

Brad at the 2005 WSOP, with other members of the WPBT

In addition to setting the stage for me getting the PokerStars gig, Up For Poker ended up getting me a few articles with All In. Over time, I also did some work for Card Player and Bluff which paid a couple of bills, but I think All In still owes me some money.

What is it that you love about poker that attracted you to the game in the first place and that still keeps you so interested to this day?

My dad taught me to play when I was still in my early teens. We played with my friends around the kitchen table. As family legend goes, my dad paid for my first crib with money he won playing poker in the early 70s. After that, I never stopped playing. Prior to the Hold’em craze, I played all the other games with plastic chips. When online poker hit the scene, I learned everything I could about it.

Over time I realized that a poker table was a great way to learn about people. Since then, it’s always been the people and their personal stories. The game is fun, and I still get excited about it. Still, if it weren’t for the human element in the game, I would lose a lot of interest. I have seen aces get cracked in just about every way. If I never see another queens versus ace-king race in my life, I won’t be disappointed. For me, it all comes down to the people I meet. Whether I’m playing or writing about poker, the microcosm of a game teaches me a lot about life away from the table.

This is what I wish real world people understood about this weird world I live in. https://t.co/EyAhXMDLfv pic.twitter.com/N7OFX4nhpk

— Brad Willis (@BradWillis) December 12, 2015

They pay $100K to play a poker game, & they likely don’t give a damn what you think about it https://t.co/jNU9nvce9Q pic.twitter.com/Ahy7P4Xhzk

— Brad Willis (@BradWillis) December 9, 2015

What’s the biggest misconception that people have about poker writers/writing?

Most current players think poker writers are wannabe poker pros, or worse, failed poker pros. In some cases, that’s true. In most cases, it’s not. In fact, I know some of the best poker writers have scant interest in playing anything more than recreational games.

The contrast of your globetrotting job, where you spend vast amounts of times in casinos and poker rooms, versus the “Main Street, USA” life you lead at home in Greenville, South Carolina fascinates me. Please tell us a bit about your personal life and what the day-to-day is like when you’re home?

When I’m not on the road, my days are like most work-from-home people. I get up in the morning, work in my home office until dinnertime, and then try to be a good husband and father at night.

In most ways, I live a stereotypical suburban life. I’ve been married for 16 years. I have two sons. The older one is 12. The younger one is seven. I live in the ‘burbs of a medium-sized city. I’ve got two Labs, a receding hairline, gray hair, and a spare tire around my waist. I am 2016 Middle-Aged Dad.

When I was younger, I spent several nights a week playing cards in underground rooms. I made a few trips to casino cities a year. I threw massive parties that should’ve gotten me banned by my Home Owners Association.

After my kids got older, I had to put some work into being a better adult. That ended up translating into less time for playing cards and partying. These days, I spend lot more of my free time at the baseball fields with my kids. The drama there is better than most poker tables.

I know that music makes you quite happy. You enjoy attending live concerts and even play the guitar yourself. Tell us some more about that and your lifelong love of music.

That’s a question that we could spend an entire day discussing. I’ll try to keep it short.

When I was a kid, my parents threw weekend parties where everyone sat around playing guitars and singing John Prine and Willie Nelson songs. By the time I was 12, I was begging my dad to teach me to play. He sketched out three chords and handed me his cheap guitar. I never stopped playing. From jazz bands, to garage bands, to college parties, to campfires, to sitting on my back porch, playing music is what I’ve done for fun over the last 30 years.

Today, there is nothing outside of my family that affects me as viscerally as music does. People who don’t know me well are sometimes taken aback by seeing me break into tears in the middle of a concert. I don’t have a great explanation for why that happens, but music is the art that touches me the deepest.

As much as I enjoy all my other hobbies and pastimes, I’d be perfectly happy spending the rest of my life going to concerts and playing music with people. You will never see more relaxed than I am at a three-day music festival with my good friends. You will never see me smile more than when I’m sitting on a porch with like-minded people, some musical instruments, and a cold beer.

There have been times in my life—some ancient and some more recent—when I’ve been embarrassed by my love of playing as it relates to my relative talent or lack thereof. One of the most important things I’ve done for myself recently was working to accept music is a vital part of who I am, and I have to get over being embarrassed or afraid of showing people that side of me, for better or worse.

What other hobbies do you have? Tell us about them.

I love entertaining people. I can happily spend all day cooking a meal for a small dinner party or three-dozen people. My mom taught me to cook, and a good day for me is making a big pot of gumbo while listening to music. I spent most of my free time during the summer smoking ribs and pork butts. Now, autumn is kicking in here at home, and once my life slows down a little, I’m looking forward to cool Sunday afternoons in the kitchen making big pots of soup and whatever else sounds good.

I also can’t spend enough time outside. I live in a beautiful part of the world, and I love packing the family and dogs in the car for long hikes among the waterfalls, streams, and mountains around here.

Brad, with his wife, at a music festival

You haven’t limited yourself to only writing about poker. You maintain your own blog, Rapid Eye Reality, where your posts often delve deeply into the personal. How did you decide upon that name for your blog?

Back in 2001, just a few weeks before 9/11, I went to a wedding on Tybee Island, Georgia. Over a meal of Low Country Boil, a friend of mine asked if I’d ever heard of blogging. She knew I was a writer and liked new technologies. She suggested I give it a try.

At the time, I didn’t have much idea of what I was doing, and I didn’t think I’d still be posting to the site 15 years later. At the time, I was a young television news guy, and I spent most of my time at crime scenes looking at dead people or in court listening to people cry. It was a stark contrast to the fanciful life my young brain dreamed up every night.

Initially, I thought it would be fun to wake every morning, record my rapid eye movement dreams from the night before, and then contrast that with the reality of what I experienced during the day. I’d barely settled on the concept and name before I came to realize what I think of as the Rule of Three Ds.

Nobody wants to read about my Dreams, Diets, or Dogs.

So, almost immediately, RER became simply a diary of my life in TV, and then an outlet to record and publish what I experienced in my everyday life. I still write there occasionally, but not nearly as often because the things about which I used to write 500-1,000 words on are now often reduced to 140 characters on Twitter. And, yeah, that sort of sucks.

When it comes to your own blog, what drives you to the keyboard? How do you arrive at the conclusion that you want to write about a particular topic?

It’s usually a deep need for expensive therapy I can’t afford.

Put another way, it’s when I want to scream for a really long time, but I’m afraid I’ll scare my family.

Put another way, there is something a little broken about my brain that doesn’t let me process things the way many other people might process them. That is, a lot of people are really good at talking through issues that are bothering them, and when they finish the conversation, they feel better. That’s rarely true for me.

I often don’t really know how I feel about something until I write it down. So, if something happens to me or around me that I’m having a hard time dealing with, I’ll start writing about it. Most of the time, those pages end up in a hidden file on my computer and nobody ever sees them. Sometimes, I feel like sharing them with people, and that’s what people see on RER.

Many writers are challenged by writer’s block as well as the numerous “life distractions” that compete for our attention and prevent us from achieving a state of deep focus. What strategies do you employ to overcome these challenges?

I’m as bad about it as anybody else. I’m easily distracted. A noise from my kids in another room, a perfectly written lyric in a song, or seeing my guitar in my peripheral vision. Any of those things can steal an hour of my day before I even realize it’s happening.

I love Twitter. I really do, but if it had never been invented, I’d be a much more productive person. If I start scrolling, I can get lost in the silliness and completely forget about whatever important thing I was thinking about.

The only thing I’ve found that really works for me is putting my phone in another room, removing the TweetBot icon from my Macbook dock, and putting in my earphones with instrumental music on: Django Reinhardt is one of my go-to artists for concentration.

Even then, I’m among the world’s worst at concentrating until I get stuck deeply into something. The things I actually finish usually get finished because I’ve created some weird artificial deadline for myself or pretended someone would be deeply disappointed in me if I didn’t finish. I hate disappointing people, even if they are imaginary.

Your Twitter bio depicts you as “self-loathing with bursts of relentless optimism”. Those are some incredibly choice and, frankly, difficult-to-process words. What do you wish you could improve about yourself and what do you cling to that inspires that relentless optimism?

That’s a tough one. It’s rare anyone challenges me on that. But here’s the truth: it’s rare that a month goes by that I don’t disappoint myself to a degree that’s probably unhealthy. I have led a very privileged life, and I feel so lucky to have been free from a lot of the worries most people in the world have to face. It’s made me believe I need to be better than I am, because if not, the privileges I’ve been afforded will have been wasted.

I have lived most of my life desperately afraid of failing, being inadequate, or people believing I wasn’t good enough. Most of this is happens despite having a really good support system of family and friends who take care of me when I’m sideways. They don’t necessarily understand why I sometimes really don’t like myself, but they love me enough to prop me up when I get that way. Publicly announcing my occasional self-hate is probably a defense mechanism for me. If I say it aloud, maybe it will take some of the power away from the reality of my feelings that I’m constantly failing at being the guy I know I should be.

The ridiculous thing about that is this: As much as I often disappoint myself, I can’t help but be inspired by the rest of the world. My family and friends are beautiful. Music and art fill me up with such joy that I sometimes can’t stand it. I’m inspired by my friends who are strong enough to use their talents to improve every day. I’m inspired by the less fortunate who work against their very real struggles to succeed. I’m inspired by the oppressed who have the courage to stand up for what’s right. They make me believe that despite how dark the world can seem, there is hope, and I just have to remember that the power for me to be better is only going to come from within. I’m working on that.

You recently had the good fortune of taking a trip to Ghana with the Right to Play organization. How did that materialize? What was it like for you and what do you feel you gained most from the experience?

PokerStars is a big supporter of Right to Play, and when I heard there was a research trip to Ghana in the offing, I was in the middle of the World Series of Poker. Sometimes my working life can feel like a fantasy land where all the problems are imagined and fit between a flop and a river. I already had a pretty busy travel schedule planned for the rest of the year, but I desperately wanted to do something that felt real and that might make a difference in someone’s life. I begged to go on the trip.

I have a good friend who grew up in Africa, and she suggested that this trip might send me back as a changed person. I feel like she was right. I’ve not been home for very long, and I’m still processing everything I saw and heard while I was there. Saying that my perspective on life changed doesn’t begin to describe the experience.

Hello from *checks map*…yep, Ghana. Hello, from Ghana. pic.twitter.com/2tKrknIlqF

— Brad Willis (@BradWillis) October 3, 2016

The interesting thing is that I’ve found it very, very hard to talk about it with my friends and family. I don’t feel like I can easily express what I felt while I was there. I’m afraid I won’t say it right. I feel like I’ll come off as preachy or that in an effort to not seem preachy, minimize how important it felt.

I’m actually in the process of coming to terms with everything I saw. A big part of that effort will be finishing what I’ve written about it so far. In short, no matter how much navel-gazing I do about myself, and no matter how stupid I get about my own life, I’ll never be able to justify moaning about my personal issues. The people I met in Ghana, despite the unbelievable problems they face, were more optimistic than most people I’ve met. That inspires me to be better.

Let’s turn back to poker. How often do you play? Home games mostly or in poker rooms? Cash or tourneys? Hold’em or mixed games?

I play significantly less than I used to. Prior to UIGEA, I played nearly every day online. Afterward, I played a lot of underground games for several years. After Black Friday, I stopped playing online at all and largely quit the underground games because they got too dangerous. I live a couple of hours away from a Harrahs, so I’ll go there occasionally to play some cash or the occasional WSOP Circuit event. I also have some good friends who get together for irregular home games. I play a lot of Hold’em, but I also enjoy playing PLO, PLO8, Razz, and when I’m feeling froggy, a nice big game of Big O. I’m a better tournament player than I am cash game player, but I don’t get a lot opportunities to practice anymore.

I’ve read that you’ve played for stakes as high as $100/$200. That’s significantly higher than any other non-professional poker player I know. Could you elaborate on how you ended up playing for such high stakes and what that felt like?

That was $100/$200 limit Hold’em and back when online poker was still really easy to beat. I wouldn’t dare try to get in a game like that today. The highest I ever played no-limit was $10/$20, and again, that was back in the good ol’ days when I could sit across from Justin Bonomo and know he was the only person there to be afraid of. Now everybody is terrifying.

Ten or 12 years ago, it wasn’t hard to build a roll. I wasn’t that talented, but at the time I was good enough. I built up enough money playing no-limit cash games and nightly tournaments that I played some of the bigger limit games. I was moderately successful in the $50/$100 games and dabbled in the bigger games for a bit. I remember a couple of consecutive nights where I won $10,000 each night. I emailed a good friend of mine who was good at limit. He immediately wrote back, “Stop playing now!” I didn’t listen, and I got my clock cleaned for a couple nights before going back to playing where I belonged.

These days, I wouldn’t dream of trying to beat the young online pros. I can still write about poker, but the talent of the bigger games has passed me by and lapped me a few times.

Are there any tales of your own poker escapades you haven’t yet told publicly, or that you’re perhaps saving for the grandkids someday?

As most people know, I rarely hold back a good story, and the ones I do hold back I do to respect the privacy of other people involved. Those who travel with me know they can be themselves around me because of what I call the 80/20 Rule. That is, 80% of the good stories are sometimes too good to tell publicly, and they can say, “Brad, this in the 80%,” and it will stay there.

One story I’ve never really mentioned, though, was this: just a few weeks before getting hired by PokerStars, I won a seat on the 2005 Party Poker Million cruise. It was back when WPT had limit Hold’em events. My first son was just a few months old, and I was rocking him in a car seat with my foot while I played the satellite. When I won it, it felt monumental. I’d been watching WPT events and playing online since the 2003 WPT Aruba tourney, and I dreamed of playing one. I woke my wife up in the middle of the night. While it seems silly now, I was literally crying because I was so happy to have a chance to play on that stage.

A month later, I got hired by PokerStars, and the big bosses thought it was a bad idea for a PokerStars guy to play a Party Poker event. So, I didn’t go, and because of that rule and the fact I can’t play on PokerStars, I’ve never played a big Main Event. PokerStars changed my life, so I have zero regrets about missing out on that chance to play. Nevertheless, when Mike Gracz ended up winning, I did feel a little pang and wondered what might have been.

In a departure from the standard written pieces we see on the PokerStars Blog, you recently produced a great longform audio segment, The New Guy. Do you foresee yourself and your team producing more multimedia content like this? Are any other innovations coming our way over the next while?

The New Guy was an experiment. I consume a ton of longform audio stories. I love Radio Lab, This American Life, and a lot of other podcasts. I love the form, because there are emotions that simply can’t be expressed in writing. There’s a moment in The New Guy after the main guy gets all his chips in on the bubble. He’s making a ton of noises that don’t even have onomatopoeia spellings. It was perfect for audio and my favorite moment of the entire segment.

Prior to my poker life, I was in broadcasting. I was in radio for a few years before spending a decade in television. I still love it, and I’ve long wanted to do broadcast-style work for the PokerStars Blog.

While I am not an audio engineer, I think the piece turned out okay, and I’d love to do more of it. It will just be a matter of whether our readers like the form as much as I do.

What’s something you still haven’t yet done/accomplished in poker that’s on your bucket list? How about away from poker?

What was it they sang in Hamilton? “There’s a million things I haven’t done…”

In terms of poker writing, I’d really like to publish a really good longform poker piece in a major magazine. I did Bust for The Bitter Southerner in 2015, and I was happy with how it turned out and the great response it got. Still, I’d like for a national or international audience to get a really good sense for what the inside of our world is like.

For those who didn’t see it in November, here’s what was nominated for #AmericanPokerAwards https://t.co/jK9XNVqEqJ pic.twitter.com/SUSVTkLt5A

— Brad Willis (@BradWillis) January 21, 2016

Also, while I have no desire to play professionally, I really need to sit down a play a main event somewhere sometime. A lot of the best writing comes from people who have been in the middle of the experience they are writing about. I’ve watched more Main Event hands than I can even count, but I’ve never played one. I need to get around to doing that someday.

Away from poker, I have aspirations of getting a big book published on subjects other than the game I’ve focused on for the past 12 years. I have one novel written, another nearly finished, and a nonfiction work-in-progress that I hope finds a home someday.

You can learn a lot about a person by the way they speak of their friends and colleagues. Last year, on the occasion of the PokerStars Blog’s 10th anniversary, you penned one hell of a thank-you letter. Truthfully, I couldn’t think of any good questions to ask you about that; I was just looking for an excuse to link to it so that people could read and appreciate it.

I can take credit for envisioning and creating the PokerStars Blog, and I have done more writing there than anywhere else in my career. Nevertheless, the PokerStars Blog is what it is because of the other people who have written there. I have been fortunate to surround myself with people who are exceptionally talented writers and even better people. I’m proud to be associated with them. They make everything shine, and I’m beyond lucky to have them as my friends and co-writers.

In closing, if you had the power to singlehandedly make some positive improvements to benefit the game of poker and/or the community, what would the changes be and why? The stage is yours, sir.

The first obvious answer would be to impress upon lawmakers how important it is to abandon the hypocrisy and cronyism that has destroyed the poker industry in America. It’s disheartening and embarrassing that the land of the free doesn’t have the freedom to play a game.

Beyond that, though, I’d want us all to look at ourselves and be a little more introspective about how inclusive we are. I would love for the tables to be friendlier for women. I would love for new players to feel more comfortable in the game. We have a beautiful thing, and it behooves us all to bring as many people into the tent as we can.

Further Reading

Please take the time to read some of Brad’s incredible work.

I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight them below and explain why I enjoyed each one. Needless to say, I highly recommend that you give them all a read. So, then, in chronological order:

Stages

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that this has been the most-read poker article that’s been written this summer. Brad Willis, poker’s wizard of wordsmithery, truly outdid himself with this piece on the PokerStars Blog. Some stories go way beyond poker and Willis did justice to this one as only he could. In case you haven’t read it yet, I’m not going to spoil it for you. Just be sure to grab your tissues and be prepared to share this incredibly moving article with everyone you know.

Ali Eslami Sneaks Back Into Amazon Room For a Main Event Edge

Penned by Bluff Magazine Editor-in-Chief Lance Bradley, this article’s title simply demands a click-through. What sort of edge? Was Eslami caught cheating?

Hardly.

I loved this piece in particular because it showed the “human” side of poker pros. Grinders though they might be, and as many hours as they may have put in working on their games on and off the felt, even they understand the importance and significance of “taking a step back” to take in the atmosphere that is the World Series of Poker. An event of the WSOP’s magnitude is simply overwhelming even for the most experienced of poker players. Eslami’s exploits drive home the point that poker players, recreational and professional alike, shouldn’t miss the forest for the trees.

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Poker Media

So you know how I was thanking the poker media people at the outset of this article? They don’t get nearly the appreciation they deserve for the hard work they do. Steve Ruddock (a member of the poker media himself) took us behind the scenes, as it were, to meet some of the best poker writers in the biz and asked them about their road to success.

If you enjoy reading about poker on a regular basis, you owe it to yourself to get to know more about the people who work so hard to bring you the news, stories, and entertainment you crave by reading this article over at Titan Poker.

What Poker Can Teach us About a Lack of Solidarity?

One of my favorite poker writers (and a Cardplayer Lifestyle contributor), Lee Davy is known for not pulling punches with his opinions. This CalvinAyre.com article challenges poker players on their principles. As many of you are probably aware, there’s a huge fight going on among advocates and opponents of online poker regarding its legalization in the United States. Chances are that if you’re a visitor to my poker site, you’re not in favor of any sort of poker prohibition whatsoever.

Whether you like to play in land-based poker rooms or prefer online poker rooms – and, moreover, if your freedom to choose whether or not you want to gamble at online casinos is important to you – you ought to read what Lee has to say. A word to the wise: be prepared to seriously consider where you’ll next be anteing up at the felt.

Main Event Needs New Identity to Attract New Players

Anyone who has been a fan of poker since the Moneymaker boom (or beforehand) has borne witness to how much things have changed, specifically at the WSOP Main Event. In this beautifully argued piece, veteran gambling reporter  of theVin Narayanan Casino City Times takes a hard, long look at the evolution of the world’s premier poker tournament over the last few years. He suggests that the time might be ripe for WSOP organizers to take a critical look at the marketing of the Main Event, openly asking “what should the narrative be?”

As recreational players, if your interest in playing in the Main Event and watching it broadcast on TV has waned significantly, you’ll probably give a big thumbs-up to Vin for putting your feelings into words.

Did you read another amazing poker article this summer that I didn’t mention? Let me know about it in the comments below or on our Facebook page. I’ll be happy to take a look!