Robbie Strazynski

Recreational poker players aren’t always familiar with terms and strategies employed by the top poker professionals. One such term is “range merging”.

This post provides a primer on what “range merging” means, along with general guidelines about how it’s best employed as a strategy at the poker table.

With multiple PokerStars-sponsored live events having taken place in Atlantic City New Jersey this year only managing to deliver low attendance figures, here’s an op-ed that suggests one way to ensure that more poker players come to play.

While online marketing can be successful if you get potential poker players to click a few times, the key to live event marketing is making it as easy as possible for the poker players to come to the event destination. In the case of Atlantic City, New Jersey events, that means you’ve gotta bus players in.

American citizens have tax reporting requirements on all income worldwide and on all foreign bank accounts with a minimum of $10,000 in them. For many online poker players, then, it’s important to abide by the rules and file taxes with the IRS accordingly.

This post reviews a couple of the main tax issues US citizens face that relate to online poker, and the importance of being the right side of the law. It’s certainly worth a look, even if you’re just a recreational poker player.

Along with my Top Pair Home Game Poker Podcast co-host, Bruce Briggs, I recently had the chance to interview 2012 WSOP Main Event runner-up Jesse Sylvia.

Beyond Jesse proving to be a great interviewee with many interesting stories to tell, he’s genuinely just a great guy; completely down-to-earth, and someone who I’d be happy to sit across a table from, regardless of whether or not we’d be playing poker.

Have a listen to the interview from episode 273 of the podcast, plus we’ve also provided a summarized transcript for you.

If you’re just learning the basics of poker and are preparing to start playing live (as opposed to online), you’ll need to have your best poker face on.

What you might not realize is that some tells may give you away; some that you might not even be aware of, like the steadiness of your voice. Have a look at our list of four ways to ensure you can keep a poker face.

Sometimes there are things you covet in life. Having decided to engage in poker writing, one of the things I’ve wanted to do for a very long time is interview Brad Willis, the longtime Head of Blogging at PokerStars.

I’m so happy that Brad agreed to take part in our Get to Know the Poker Media series. One of my role models and heroes in a sense that far exceeds the realm of poker, I’ve been enjoying and learning from Brad’s work for years.

It’s time for all of us to learn more about him, his career in the poker industry, and his personal life, which he was gracious enough to be open about to an incredible extent. May the spotlight always shine on such a remarkable man.

PokerListings boasts a number of great writers, one of whom is their International Editor, Dirk Oetzmann. After meeting him at a live event in the Bahamas, I naturally became more interested in his work.

I’ve always found poker writers who produce content in English despite it not being their mother tongue to be quite unique and talented. Dirk is no exception. I got to know him better after asking him a number of questions about his career, hobbies, and personal life.

I think you’ll enjoy learning about him, too, and thus develop a better appreciation for his great work.

Charity poker events are a dime a dozen these days, but they have the power to take on a special meaning when the charity’s founder comes to speak to the players in person.

In this post I recap my “charity poker event organizing history”, as well as the specifics of the latest one I put together. While the sums raises aren’t huge, the spirit of the events was incredibly positive and all the poker players came away feeling great about having been able to raise money for charity.

Even when I can’t seem to find my poker writing A-game, it’s no excuse to stop stepping into the batter’s box, as it were, and quit swinging altogether.

In this blog post, I talk a bit about why I haven’t been able to summon up the oomph to write much lately. I reflect on the road I’ve taken towards attaining poker world recognition and the weight that that position now carries with it.

I think you’ll find it interesting to read about the poker writing process I go through before clicking Publish.

Ever wonder what type of work goes in to being the Editor-in-Chief of PokerListings, one of the world’s top poker media brands?

We had the good fortune of getting an interview with Matt Showell, who serves as the site’s Editor-in-Chief and has been in poker writing for about a decade now. Beyond learning more about the work he’s done and is currently involved him, Matt was kind enough to tell us a bit about his personal life as well.

Hope you enjoy getting to know another great poker writer.

I’ve written a ton about my experiences this past summer at the World Series of Poker, and there’s still so much more to tell you all about.

Aside for all the poker I played in casino poker rooms, I also took the time one night to play in a local home game. The experiences were unforgettable and I want to tell you all about them, and why it was worth travelling halfway around the world to play in it.

I think a lot of recreational poker players and home game warriors will identify with what I have to say about the experience.

Haley Hintze is a no-nonsense poker writer. Over her 15-year career in the industry, there’s pretty much nothing that she hasn’t seen or written about. Having contributed to a number of different outlets and engaged in various different forms of poker writing, including live reporting, Haley has nonetheless kept a relatively low profile.

For that reason, we’re grateful that she agreed to be the next interviewee in our “Get to Know the Poker Media” series. It’s time to learn more about her and gain a better appreciation of the great work she’s done as a poker writer.