Poker Stories22 Des 2022

Poker Stories: Adam Pliska

Adam Pliska has been with the World Poker Tour since the start, and along with the company recently celebrated 20 years in the game. The WPT President and CEO acted as the tour's general counsel for several years before making the switch to the executive side. Under his leadership, the WPT has since grown to a truly global scale and recently hosted a record-breaking $29 million prize pool WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.

Before Pliska took the helm at WPT, however, he worked in TV production. The USC film school graduate even helped to launch programs such as Baywatch, Win Ben Stein's Money, and a reboot of Lassie. He ultimately decided to go back to law school, however, graduating from UC Berkeley. He was all set to take a job with the Senate Judiciary Committee on intellectual property law when his good friend Steve Lipscomb called him with an offer for a brand-new poker TV show that had yet to secure distribution. Pliska decided to gamble, and the rest is history.

Highlights from this interview include faking press credentials for Hollywood access, being focused on TV production, Leonardo DiCaprio and the collie, following a girl to law school, battling the cold of Washington D.C., gambling on a poker start-up, becoming poker Disney, how the tour makes money, putting the world in World Poker Tour, pivoting during a pandemic, how to lease a horse, taking a frozen cake to the face from Steve Aoki, learning the cello, hating the 4 a.m. paper route, betting against Antonio Esfandiari's charisma, looking like Obama, a Maleficent job offer, in labor at the final table, and death-defying sailboat races with Richard Branson.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(160)

Poker Stories: Jennifer Shahade

Jennifer Shahade grew up in Philadelphia. Her father Mike was a master chess player and her mother Sally a professor at Drexel University, but at night the two would count cards at the blackjack table...

15 Jul 20221h 8min

Poker Stories: Benjamin 'Bencb' Rolle

Ben Rolle, known to most of the poker world as Bencb, is one of the greatest online tournament players in the game today. The 33-year-old German was a standout junior soccer player, but turned to onli...

4 Jul 20221h 19min

Poker Stories: Brek Schutten

Brek Schutten is a family man with five children that spends his days working as a nurse in the intensive care unit. But that hasn't stopped the Michigan native from dominating the live tournament cir...

23 Jun 202251min

Poker Stories: Brad Owen

Brad Owen discovered poker while in high school, learning the game by studying poker software his dad brought home from work. He continued to play throughout college and even as he earned his masters ...

10 Mai 20221h

Poker Stories: Kane Kalas

Kane Kalas grew up near Philadelphia where his father and baseball hall of famer Harry Kalas worked as the play by play commentator for the Phillies for nearly 40 years. He could have joined the famil...

20 Apr 20221h 22min

Poker Stories: Phil Galfond

Phil Galfond has made his mark on pretty much every part of the poker world. Not only is the Maryland native considered one of the best to ever play the game, but he's also been recognized as a prolif...

6 Apr 20221h 15min

Poker Stories: 'Miami' John Cernuto

"Miami" John Cernuto is a true ironman of the live poker tournament circuit. The longtime grinder holds the record and a sizable lead for the most cashes ever with 540 and counting. To put that into p...

10 Mar 20221h 17min

Poker Stories: Scotty Nguyen

Scotty Nguyen has the ultimate poker success story. After escaping almost certain death in the Vietnam War and surviving almost a month stranded at sea, the teenager eventually found himself in the Un...

24 Feb 20222h