On episode 246 of the Top Pair Home Game Poker Podcast, my co-host, Bruce Briggs, and I interviewed Mark Hoke. Mark is a well-known, very prolific producer over poker content, having hosted over 700 poker radio shows. He spoke with us about how he started out in the poker world, told us some stories about his home poker game history, and took us on his journey through poker media.
If you’ve ever been curious as to how the poker media folks you know and love and listen to on a regular basis got to where they currently are, this is certainly an interview you won’t want to miss. Below, you’ll find the entirety of Episode 246 of the podcast, which includes the interview with Mark starting at the 11:50-minute mark. You can also read the transcript below.
Interview Transcript
Welcome back to the Top Pair Home Game Poker Podcast. We are privileged to have with us a very special guest; a long-time, very well respected poker radio show host, Mark Hoke. You can find him on KSHP 1400 AM in Las Vegas and KSHP.com. We are going to learn a little bit more about Mark.
Mark, welcome to the show!
You are so not privileged to have me on the show. You are nuts!
Anytime we can have a radio guy on, it’s great.
Yeah, we are buddies.
We are dying breed, you know.
It is a rare opportunity for us to turn the mike around, usually you are the one to ask the questions, isn’t that right?
I haven’t done an interview forever, so, this is going to be a lot of fun. I am really excited to get a chance to talk to you guys for sure.
Very cool. Why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit? Tell us a little bit about yourself. What did you do before you got involved in the poker world?
I had a real job.
It is such an interesting story and I will do the short-short version. I was in sales and management and coached volleyball for 20 years. And all of sudden I was hanging out in Scott Matusow’s chat room, and I ended up getting asked to do the show. It took off from there. We started out as Short-Stacked Radio then it turned into the Fifth Street Radio, then I decided – you know– I’m just going to take all the credit and put my name on it. So I moved out here, to Las Vegas, about two years ago, and boy, it has been just crazy ever since. It has been very exciting. I am so happy to even have the voice of anybody.
Just two years?
Yeah, but I have been doing the show over four. I actually started on KLAV here in Las Vegas and then they changed format, so I went over to KSHP. I have been firing the way on real radio ever since.
That sounds familiar. I have a similar background. I worked in a radio late 70s, early 80s at a small country Western station. And this is because I happened to know the owner from another job that I had. He said, you want to come and work at the station? I need a sales manager and do some on air stuff. The first day that I walked through the front door was the first day that I had ever been in a radio station in my life. It was really kind of serendipitous.
Oh did you have to play like Waylon Jennings, George Jones? Fast story about country music. I had broken up with a long-time girlfriend, for like 10 years. I had gone to get a haircut and the guy was playing George Jones songs. I swear to God, it was every depressing country song you can possibly find. I was going to hang myself by the time I got out of there. It was terrible. So I feel for you, brother.
That is country music.
So, how did you get into the poker part of it? Had you played poker whole your life? Did you do home games? Did you play growing up or in college?
I dabbled in a little bit in college with friends, just nickel-and-dime stuff. Around 2003 I started getting into it online, playing on Ultimate Bet and some other sites. Then I started running home games, a ton of them, I used to do cash games, a lot of tournaments. Just kind of built things up from there and eventually I got to the World Series in 2007 after that. Had a final table at a WSOP Circuit event. It kind of went from there and I got hooked in the industry and the rest is history.
You started with the home game thing then?
Absolutely! I was down in Maryland Live! covering the PPC Poker Tour event. A friend of mine was actually there, the guy I always butted heads with, it was him and I who would almost always win. I finally got to see him after four years, because we moved away obviously. I just had a great time get to see him, to hang out and play. He is a great player; Shane Hess. One of the best players out there you have never heard of.
Where were you living when you did the home games?
South Central Pennsylvania. I had lived in York, Pennsylvania area. Paid a lot of bills going around York and Harrisburg, and Lancaster, trying to find every game that I could. Picking people up.
There are games in Amish country, in Lancaster?
Oh yeah. I never went to an Amish compound or anything like that to play. But Pennsylvania, you see how they were very receptive to gambling – one the first states to really get poker going, and now they are being very receptive to getting online poker going as well. That’s because there are a ton of underground and home games. We had a club that, we were running for a while until my buddy Eddie, he let an undercover cop in the door, but otherwise, there is so much poker in that area, it is unreal. That is why Maryland Live! has succeeded, Parx and all those casinos in that area. No shock there, trust me.
That is what I was going to ask. What was the legal climate at the time? It seems like it is different from state to a state, whether they will tolerate home games. Sometimes they will tolerate them, if you don’t do it for a living, if you don’t take a rake.
Usually, you can take a rake. I won’t say whether we did or not. When you get in a shopping center and put up a big sign, you’ve got to be a little bit careful on who you let in the door. I’d like to say, it wasn’t my club. But it was just one of those great times when it really enforced my love for the game. We had so many guys in there who would just come in there and had a great time. We just loved to play poker. I got to direct some of the tournaments and came up with some cool ideas and things like that. That is one of the great things about poker. It has such a great social atmosphere and for the most part, smart people play poker, too, so you get to hang out with people that are like you and aren’t drooling on the table. You can actually have a good conversation.
Was this all before you started doing the radio poker stuff?
First show I did was on July 5th, 2011.
That is very interesting. When you said four years ago, that is what I wanted to follow up on. That is after Black Friday.
Yes. How about that?
Here is the thing. When anything hits the industry or anything like that, there is always an opportunity that is going to follow. Now, it took a little longer to get it really, really going to the point where I’m paying the bills. We’ve got things rolling there pretty close after Black Friday. And I’ve got to tell you this – Full Tilt filled my shows for a year, thank you!
People wanted to know what was going on, and because I’d got more and more hooked into the industry, everybody was telling me: Here is what is happening, here’s what is happening. Here is another Full Tilt story. We worked very hard with Grindettes and PPA and all those guys. So many different people, coming from BLUFF Magazine, different reporters getting me information and players were telling me stuff. It was interesting to follow that whole saga to where it is now. It is stunning to think that we still don’t have online poker in the United States. But…
It is, what it is.
Do you think it is going to change in Pennsylvania area? We have the three states – Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware. Is Pennsylvania next?
Delaware doesn’t count.
Sure it does! There is like seven people. That is almost a full table.
I know people in Delaware. I know six of them.
I do think Pennsylvania is going to be the next state to go. People are so focused on California. It is such a huge state and there are so many interests that are fighting, between the tribes and the casinos. I’ve heard at the American Poker Awards, when we did the symposium, before the poker awards that night, we were talking about all the obstacles that they are facing – they are thinking maybe 2020 is the legitimate time to get everything coordinated and started. Pennsylvania is the state where they get it.
They got it off the start when they started opening new casinos there to play at, they were among first states to really open up their gaming. They brought in so much revenue. They have a clear understanding of what the possibilities are there. If Pennsylvania does make the move, and I think they are going to be the next major state to do it, it is going to become one of the poker capitals of the world. Especially if they are smart enough to link up internationally. You have a very populous state and one that understands what can happen when you open that revenue stream up. I’m pretty optimistic about Pennsylvania more than anywhere else.
Let’s hope that the home games scene there keeps on thriving, as you described it.
It is such a great scene. So much fun. I love taking their money.
You have made about 700 shows by now. Is that right?
Isn’t that sick?
That is pretty incredible. Do you make your own schedule? How often do you decide to do it? Who do you work with? How is it set on a monthly basis?
When I first started out, I did three to four shows a week on the Internet. Then, when I came to Las Vegas – and there is other things that I started working on, too. I got on the real radio and I really focused on that. I started getting live event reporting jobs, I would go out, and I pretty much limited the Internet shows to doing them on-site at different venues, and at the World Series and so on. I don’t do the Internet as much anymore because I really want to focus on the show on KSHP. I mean, to me that’s the biggest thing. And then obviously, I am doing all the live reporting for the PPC Poker Tour, and we are about ready to renew the deal for the Season 4…
Congrats!
Thank you.
So, there is not as much time for me to do everything that I did. Plus my daughter is six years old now. There is a lot happening. I can’t do all the crazy Internet shows, like I used to do. We are on Wednesdays at 5pm Pacific Time. Of course, you can hear us all around the world. We have got the podcast up on iTunes and at markhokeshow.podbean.com. People can tune in there anytime. We have some great stuff there, for sure.
You’ve had me on a couple of shows before, and thank you very much for that.
You are welcome, Robbie. I love you.
Thank you, thank you very much, Mark.
I noticed on a couple of shows, you’ve had – I guess – regular guests. I know the Grindettes always seem to be on, Nate Dowland, Reuben Bresler. Who are these people? How did you get to meet them? What is their relationship with the Mark Hoke Show?
The Grindettes – I have been doing a regular segment with them since pretty much when I started the show, a few months in, and Katie Stone is the primarily one that does the segment. We’ve had to step away from that segment a bit because Katie is with child. We´ll probably have a baby crying in the background, but that’s all right. Katie Dozier, Jen Shahade and Jamie Kerstetter have just have been fantastic. It is important to me to promote women´s poker, too. We want to get more women in the game, it has been a little touch and go lately but the Grindettes have been fantastic. And then my co-host, Nate Dowland. He has been with me as a co-host on the show since pretty close to after I moved down here in Vegas. I met him at the World Series a couple of years ago. I’ve just met Reuben this year´s World Series. He has done a lot of podcasting, in the Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone. He is very into those kinds of things. He is doing work for 888 now. We had Joe Payne on the show; he runs the Nevada Poker League. Joe had to step back. It has been terrific group of people. Jessie Kapps doing some co-hosting, too. We really have a good group of people to work on the show, and without those I guys, I wouldn’t be sitting where I am right now.
Let´s switch gears. We actually had a topic last episode. We rambled on a bit about poker on TV. Is it still relevant? It seems like you have to look around for it and dig deep to find it. It is still just Hold’em. With the increase in the fantasy football I guess, you suddenly got some money flowing into it as far as the sponsorship in there. We had a message from one of our listeners on Facebook: Hey, did you guys know, there’s 24-hour poker network launching on October 1st. It’s called Poker Central. I’d be interested to hear what you guys think about it on one of your future episodes. That came from a fan. As usual, we really appreciate feedback from our listeners and we love to include you in the show. I had never heard about this. I did a little investigation, and signed up for their alerts when it is going to become available. I thought, when I first read of it, it might just an Internet channel, but I guess they are actually trying to make it a regular TV channel.
There is still up in the air a little bit. I know they are starting out on the Internet. I know Mori Eskandani well – he’s doing a lot of the shows for them over there. I think it can be done. I am just wondering whether the Poker Central itself is headed. I know of another one, which will be starting out, I’m going to be involved with. I don’t want to sound like I’m chopping down Poker Central. It is very interesting that they are kind of going back in the archives. I thought there was going to be a little bit original programming on there. But I guess we´ll find out. You don’t want to invest too much money in something and have it fall down when you could have maybe got off cheaper. If it succeeds, it´s going to bring in some big revenue, and do alright. You don’t want to blow it all in early. I am excited. I hope people are going to watch it. The television to me has always been the key to bring people into the game. I think, when the Moneymaker boom happened, people always say it is because of online poker, because of this Chris Moneymaker. But to me, if you hadn’t told the story, if that story wasn’t on ESPN, people couldn’t have watched it, and Lon and Norman hadn’t done such a great job along with the guys putting together the broadcast, of telling that story, I don’t know if the poker boom happens. To me television is the key to it. Todd Anderson – Poker Night in America – doing a nice job with his show. I think we just need more innovative with it. The World Series of Poker is trying some new things. I am not sure whether they’re working or not, I guess we´re going to find out. Poker Central is hopefully good step forward as is any other network, any poker we get on TV is great. I just would like to see original things out there than just doing an interview show, or just showing old shows, or doing a high roller show. We’ve got to make it more innovative way in order to put people in.
I did hear about it, and I have written about it a couple of times on my Cardplayerlifestyle blog. I kind of think – yes, you can expect a little bit more, but it is tough to fill 24 hours of programming. I don’t think it is going to be a channel on TV like the golf channel. I have a hunch that is going to be something like the WWE network – available on all your devices, wherever you are on mobile. That is my guess. Then perhaps there will be like premium revenue model for more original content. I don’t really know, but that is my guess re: what is actually going to happen with the whole Poker Central thing. We´ll see, like you said, the more poker content that is out there, the more organizations that are promoting it, more poker podcasts, the more poker anything out there is always good for the industry. You’ve got these three ambassadors that signed on – Negreanu, Hellmuth, Esfandiari. Their reputations are big enough that I don’t think they would put their names on something just for the sake of doing so. I would say they also believe in whatever this product is going to be. It´s definitely a good thing and I guess we wish them well, let’s hope they will succeed.
I think the biggest key to pulling people into watch anything on television is they have to be able to relate to what is on the show. If you´re a guy sitting at home, playing in a home game. You say, I want to watch poker on TV, they turn on a high roller show. And honestly, I love high roller tournaments, there is entertainment there, but at the same time, the reason that people got pulled in by Chris Moneymaker is because they can identify with Chris Moneymaker. Here is a guy who spent a minuscule amount of money and he ends up being the World Champion. He is an accountant from Tennessee. People say: You know, that could be me. When they watch a high roller show, they don’t feel like that could be me. There is a guy putting down a quarter of million dollars to play poker. A quarter million dollars? And that to me is when the disconnect has come. While I think there is an entertainment value, I don’t think that pulls people in. I think we’ve got to get into more of a game show model. You want to get the big names involved but you have to make people feel like: I could be on that show. I could be a part of that. I think that has been completely ignored for the most part recently. That’s what I would like to see change. Maybe I will be able to help out doing it in 2016.
I reckon there was something like that before the Black Friday. I forgot the name of the show. What was it? Beat a pro? Or something like that.
There was another one that Daniel Negreanu did.
That is the one that I remember. PokerStars sponsored it. That was pretty cool. You get up from the audience, and you go and play against the pro, if you beat them you can win like a million bucks.
Yes, that is the kind of stuff we need to do. We need to be able to find the mix. It is a great thing about poker. Anybody can play it. I can sit down with Phil Hellmuth and play against him. I probably lose, but you know. But the opportunity of being there and then if you actually succeed. The Celebrity Poker Showdown – I thought that was one of the best poker shows ever. You see, celebrities – some are good, some are bad, but there are people that you like, and you want to see them on TV. And it’s cool. You can feel like you are part of that, because you watch these guys on TV every week. Some of the guys that are out there now, people don’t know who they are, it causes that issue, too. I think it needs to be a transition to a game show model than anything else.
I think when we talked about it last week, Robbie and I both agreed that one of the elements is the personalities. You don’t have the personalities these days. They televise a lot of these tables, the young guns. Young guns are older now than they used to be, but certainly younger than I am. They sit there with their glasses and their hoodies and they purposely do not communicate and don’t socialize, don’t interact, because it is a part of their game. They don’t want to give anything away. Back in old days, you had Freddy Deebs, Eli Elezra, Gus Hansens, Sammy Farhas, and Scotty Nguyen. They were entertaining to watch. They were almost like Ocean’s Eleven type of crew.
I think a lot of the best players in the world are introverted people. Sometimes it is hard to get them to do anything. They just don’t want to do it, because they are not comfortable with that. You have players out there now that are very good and are very good personalities, but we don’t have the venue to make them superstars at this point. The World Series – when somebody wins a bracelet at the World Series – there are so many guys that win bracelets now, and they´re all great players but there is no way to put them up on a pedestal. It is part of the reason I have a problem with this – there needs to be changes in poker, period, with an organized body, players organization. You don’t have a season, you don’t have a real champion, and there is no organization behind it, except the little individual pockets. You need to look at the NFL, not only do they promote their teams but they promote the players, and we don’t do that in poker. Everybody just goes from a venue to a venue. This great player wins this event, this player wins that event. That’s pretty much it. Without with somebody behind it to push these guys out, we are not getting anywhere. Unfortunately, when you look at World Champions recently, there are some good players, some decent personalities, but at the same time, when you realistically look at who the World Champion is and how we declare that – it is one $10,000 buy-in tournament. Of all the tournaments in the world that are going on, we make our champion the guy who managed to have one good run over a week.
In one discipline – just in Hold’em.
Exactly. It doesn’t make any sense at this point. It used to when you had 100 really good players. You threw them all in a room and off you go. But the game has changed so much, and there are so many great players out there, and there is no real way to follow somebody up until that week. The TV shows do the best to portray that story but once again: that is just one tournament. Imagine if the NFL was just one tournament, imagine NBA – one tournament. If you think about it and you really scale it down – it would be like somebody scores a basket in the NBA and the other team is gone. It is! You can play one hand at the World Series of Poker in the Main Event, be Phil Ivey or whoever, get busted out and you are gone. And you have no way to win the World Championship at that point. To me, that doesn’t make any sense anymore. There has to be some innovation and a lead up to that Main Event. I love the Main Event. It is a terrific tournament, and everybody has the dream of being the World Champion, but I don’t think that´s the right way to determine a World Champion. It has to be some sort of season, if you will, to build up, so people can follow these guys as they go through the season and you can learn about these players. That’s how you build a superstar. You don’t build a superstar with six weeks of TV shows.
That is interesting. People who are more the hard core, who the super high roller would be interesting for them. There is an audience for that, an audience for the game show type of poker show. To fill 24 hours with new innovative content, that is what Poker Central may end up evolving into over time. Integrating more and more of this stuff, catering to as large audience as possible, maybe even playing role in changing how we declare the World Champion – a small role, the media role. Maybe that is the direction things are heading in. You never know.
At some point, everybody has got to put the egos and the selfishness aside. I am not saying every poker player or a casino is selfish. I think there is too much of bend towards me, me, me… I have to go out and win. And I understand that. These guys are out there killing themselves. I feel bad for so many players because it is so much harder to win now even than it was five years ago. There are so many great players out there. The education of the player has gone up 200-fold.
That’s why everyone sticks to home games. At least the guys who listen to this show, right?
It is difficult. The guys like me, or you, that are playing in the home game, that are trying to break through. Man, that ain´t easy now. You’ve got to really get down, and dirty, and learn, and learn, and play, and play. More than I did when I started and I used to do pretty well on the home game circuit. When I could drive down to Atlantic City, I played some tournaments and did OK. But now, for that guy to succeed in the World Series for example, everybody has got the dream of winning a bracelet. When they added more chips for example, they handed it to the pros. The recreational players that doesn’t understand – this is what I get to see in the industry all the time – it doesn’t matter how many chips you have; it’s the blind structure that matters. They get all excited. Oh, I have got all these chips now, but the problem is the great players have the chips now, too. You just give them more of an opportunity to play around a little bit. I will give you the classic home game story: When I played my first event at the World Series, I sat down at the table and Jonathan Little shows up. And this is right when Jonathan Little was on that huge run.
We’ve had him on our podcast before. He has been our guest.
I was scared. I was like: Oh my God, I am sitting at the table with one of the hottest players in the world. But guess who the first player off my table was? Jonathan Little. Why? Because he had played a couple of hands. We started out with 3,000 chips. It was double the buy-in. He lost a couple of hands early. All of a sudden half of his stack has gone, the blinds went up and then he had to push with a hand and he was out of the tournament. Back then you have had more of a chance for the amateurs to get through, but now, these guys, they lose a few hands, and it doesn’t matter, with what they did at the World Series this year. That is why you saw so many professionals winning bracelets. I mean I can think of few, a handful of true amateurs that won this year because of that. If anybody from a home game is saying, yeah, I’m going to go and I’m going to try to win a bracelet – well, you better be ready and you better understand what you’re walking into now. It is a lot harder after the changes World Series has made this year.
I think there needs to be a little bit more of a shift to what golf is. If you think about it, plenty of golf fans, they like the whole ranking system, they like watching the pros on TV week after week. It doesn’t take away from their fun of going playing a round on a weekend. That is absolutely fine. You can’t separate it, it is actually one of the thrills of poker. You can go and play golf, but you are never going to play a round with Tiger Woods or Rory Mcllroy. In poker you can. At this point, recreational players, they have said I am not going to put in so much effort. I am fine just being the best player in my little home game and that’s enough for me. I don’t need to go ahead and do all this software stuff, all the books. Let all the pros do their high roller events. There is nothing wrong with that sort of situation – I don’t think.
You have baseball with all the minor leagues, rookie leagues. You have got single A, double A, triple A, and the big leagues. There is nothing wrong with that, and there would be nothing wrong with having something like that in poker. You want to have some open events because you want to get out and play against those pros, but there is part of me that feels that maybe should earn that privilege. For a recreational player to go and play a major event – it is so much harder than it was years back. I am not discouraging anyone. Go and take a shot and have fun if you can afford it, you’ve got set up something in your home game, or you’ve won a satellite to the World Series – do it, because it is a great experience, but you also have to have a clear understanding where the game is now. If you’re considering going into it as a career, it’s even harder. You have got to play cash, and play cash and win your money there and take shots in tournaments and hope you can hit big. I know some great players that just has gone through some horrible, horrible runs out there. It´s not that they are playing badly. They catch a bad break here and there, and the competition is just so tough. You’ve got to be prepared for what are you going to face. I am not saying the field is completely good, trust me, there are some bad players, too, in major events. But the depth of good players is so much more. It is exciting to play against them. I love when I do it, but I tell you what – it’s much scarier than it used to be.
I think the analogy with golf is pretty accurate. When I first started playing poker, again I am kind of entrepreneurial at heart, I thought they do need an association, they need some kind of organization, and it seems that if anyone who was existing out there, the PGA would fit more of, kind of a template of what poker players could do, opposed to any of the other ones. There is a good analogy – if you are a good player, you play with your buddies, you go out on the weekends, to the company tournaments – you never really expect to get to the heights of Tiger Woods. But you love the game, and you love to watch those guys on TV on Sunday, too. It doesn’t necessarily mean the only reason I’m watching is that I hope that one day I’m going to be there. No, you watch them just because you enjoy the personalities and you enjoy the competition. You enjoy seeing a true pro in action and how he approaches the game.
That is part of the fun getting to play in those tournaments. It is, too, because you learn. I can tell watching some of these guys and having played against them on the occasions I have – there is just such a higher level of thinking. The experience that they have is amazing. In terms of governing body, something like the PGA tour, like you said, there is so much fraction in the game, there is a lot of egos out there. For the game to take the next step, we have to have the governing. Like in the Magic the Gathering.
Magic the Gathering has a governing body!
It sounds funny, but they sanction and set up the rules for everything from their top tournaments down to local games. They tie everybody together. We don’t do that in poker. I know, for example, a recreational league was running a satellite to the World Series of Poker. They found out that their logo was on and the World Series was mentioned. Take that down! Instead of saying to them: Hey, you know what, we appreciate it, but just so you know, you can’t really use the logo, but – thanks for sending players our way, what can we do to help? The World Series Main Event should have 10,000 players in it. If you are around the world and work with casinos, with bar leagues, with home games, you can set up some sort of program, where everybody could funnel the players in. You can’t tell me they couldn’t get 2,000-3,000 more players in – to show up at the Main Event. You just have to put the work in to do it.
I think we have time for one more topic before we go, is that right Bruce? Short one. As the member of the poker media – esteemed member, who has been clearly involved in the industry for little while, where do you think the media is headed with all the things that our going on in the game today? Anything you want say, get off your chest, predictions?
I tell you what. It is really hard to say where the media is going to end up, because unfortunately magazines really struggle. I remember people saying: Oh man, here is Card Player. Is this Card Player magazine? I’ve got to get subscription to this. And you picked up the BLUFF magazine. BLUFF is gone. The print media is fading away, and I think a lot of places are having trouble figuring out how to make this transition to the digital age. Nothing against anybody who’s doing print but it’s just time to go digital and let it go. In terms of reporting, I obviously do all the live reporting for the PPC Poker Tour and Seminole Hard Rock. We reach people that way pretty well. I think we don’t reach out to those smaller tournaments and build those superstars up, that are coming up. You look at those guys that are taking shots in home games and unless they win a major tournament, you don’t know who they are. And even the guys that are on some of those smaller tours. They get a quick article. The MSPT has done a nice job promoting, I think we are doing the job for PPC, Heartland Poker Tour – kind of had to step back, they had some issues with their management. Now they are trying to get things straighten out. The one thing we have to do – we have to start pushing those up and coming players that people don’t know who they are. That’s something I have always tried to do on the show. I’d see somebody that wins an event, one of those smaller ones, I would say let’s get him on the show. I had to change the model little bit, because now I am on only once a week, but when I was doing the Internet show, I was like: Hey, let’s hype these guys up and get to know them. The more stories we see about these people, the better off we are going to be. We all know about Phil Hellmuth, Scotty Nguyen, we all know about Daniel Negreanu. Let’s start getting some new blood in there. Let´s start really pushing some of these other guys in, and telling some stories that are going to make a guy sitting down with a bunch of his buddies at the table in their house feel like – I can make a step up. People are going to pay attention. Have a little fun, get some more people involved and make some new superstars. Whether that sells or not, that’s maybe the issue to a point. When I had done livestreams of small events, I sometimes got more viewers and listeners than when I was doing stuff at the WPT. These people, when they get that one chance…
They are home town heroes. Their whole block is watching probably.
Yes, exactly. And that’s how you reach people and I wish we would be able to work with that.
Well, Mark, we really appreciate you taking the time to visit with us today. Sounds like there is a wealth of other things that we could talk about. We would like to have you back as a repeat guest. It has been a pleasure to get to know you and to have you on the show. Before we let you go, is there anything else you would like to add?
A couple of things real quick. Of course, I do all the live reporting for the PPC Poker Tour, we are about to wrap up Season 3, heading in to Season 4. You go to ppcpokertour and check out all the events, we have got big one coming up at Binions this weekend, so come on out if you guys are in Las Vegas or you’re going to break my heart. Also the Mark Hoke Show on KSHP 1400 AM Las Vegas – or you can listen around the world at KSHP.com, 5pm Pacific Time. Podcasts are at markhokeshow.podbeen.com and iTunes. Also I love Twitter followers, if you guys want to give me a follow on Twitter I really do appreciate that. I try to give a shout outs on the show @markhokeshow. Facebook is Mark Hoke Show. And… Robbie and Bruce, you guys rule!