'The Circuit' Moving On Up to Prime Time

When CardPlayer.com launched its Internet radio show The Circuit last December at the Bellagio's Five-Diamond World Poker Classic, "The Poker Authority" never imagined how popular the show would become with die-hard poker players around the world.

With a combination of big names, insightful strategy, and listener interaction, The Circuit has become poker's top radio show in just a short time. Here, you can listen to Haralobos Voulgaris giving advice on how to subtly break down a girl's self-esteem, Steve Dannenmann wax philosophical about crack and transsexuals, Gus Hansen expound upon his experience with backgammon groupies, Harry Demetriou's tale of a man with breast implants, and Phil Hellmuth talking about tournament strategy (sans sunglasses), all at the same web address.

But, during the 2006 World Series of Poker this summer, The Circuit is stepping up to prime time. The show will be broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 122 every weekday from 8:06 a.m. to 9 a.m. PDT - right smack-dab in the middle of drive time. As a result, millions of potential listeners across America will soon be late for work because they've just got to know what to do when they have a small pocket pair and are reraised in middle position.

The show is already a top-30 iTunes Sports Podcast, and each episode generates several thousand hits of both its streaming Real Media and downloadable MP3 formats available at CardPlayer.com. Both e-mail and phone questions pour in for each of the show's hosts, as well as each day's guests, from both the U.S. and Canada, but also from such places as the United Kingdom, and as far away as Scandinavia, Australia, and Africa.

The Circuit features Card Player's Scott Huff and poker professionals Gavin Smith and Joe Sebok in an hour-long talk-radio format in which the three talk poker strategy, news, and gossip, and interview guests, all the while peppering the airwaves with their now famous camaraderie and humor, thus providing listeners with a show that is both informative and entertaining. Traveling to all of poker's largest, most prestigious events, The Circuit and its three affable hosts have made quite a name for themselves in the poker world. But it wasn't always that way.

The Past
After spending a grueling 40 days and nights as a Card Player intern at the 2005 World Series of Poker, Huff's hard work was rewarded with a full-time writing position with Card Player. He now acts as tournament content manager, making it happen as Card Player's roving tournament caravan follows the tournament trail.

Card Player tapped Scott to make the show a reality, and a short while later, The Circuit, now approaching its 70th show, was born. Rather than staring out from a basement in the middle of an Indiana cornfield, a fairly nervous Huff and well-known poker professional Mike "The Mouth" Matusow kicked off the first week of programming from the 37th floor of Bellagio without a hitch. And who can blame Huff for being a bit nervous, considering that the show managed to land superstar Daniel Negreanu as its inaugural guest. "I was sick with worry every day," Huff recalled, mentioning the fact that Paul Darden, Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Phil Laak, Joe Cassidy, and Gavin Smith weren't far behind - all in the same week - setting the precedent for all of the larger-than-life names and personalities who would soon don The Circuit's headphones.

It was during that first week that Huff began to see the show take shape. "At one point during the first show, Mike and Daniel just started talking, and I took a step back. The information that came across was some of the most useful I had ever heard," said Huff. "After hearing all of the inside info from the pros, I knew there was a chance to make something really special."

During the Winter Poker Open at the Borgata in Atlantic City, Matusow's personal schedule started to conflict with that of The Circuit. During a week as a guest host, Gavin Smith stepped up to the mike, and Joe Sebok made his first appearance as a guest that same week. The three produced some great shows during the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, and during the 2006 Five-Diamond World Poker Classic championship event, Smith and Sebok were officially announced as co-hosts.

The Cast
Although having been a professional for more than 15 years, Smith has started to catch more and more of the public's eye of late, and in the process he has scooped up more than $2.5 million in tournament winnings. He won two events at the 2005 Mirage Poker Showdown, including the World Poker Tour Championship, which landed him the title of 2005 WPT Player of the Year. He's sometimes referred to on-air as "The Caveman," and while he claims it's unintentional, he comes across to listeners as a strong, silent type with a tight-lipped wealth of poker knowledge.

"Reading some of the message boards, I see that some listeners think I'm holding back," said Smith. "I don't really have a problem exposing any of my secrets, so I might try to open up a little more." Of course, it's radio, so Smith is certainly far from being silent, but when seated next to his nearly polar opposite co-host Sebok, it might just come across that way.

Unlike Smith, Sebok is a relative newcomer to the professional poker world, and didn't gain visibility until the 2005 World Series of Poker when he made a few final-table appearances. Since then, Joe's been on a tear, winning the championship event at this year's Heavenly Hold'em tournament and following in Smith's footsteps by winning an event at this year's Mirage Poker Showdown. Oh, and he's Barry Greenstein's son.

Sebok's role on the show more closely mirrors his real-life persona - laid-back and loquacious. Despite his more gregarious nature on the show, he faces the same requests for more poker insight that Smith does, but he has a slightly different response. "It's not the kind of show in which we'll ever tell people exactly what to do," he stated. "We give a lot of very subtle poker information, and if people listen, it's going to help; but hopefully, we entertain people, too."

The Dynamic
As easy as the trio makes it seem, it's anything but. With no "home-field advantage," The Circuit is forced to record from a traveling studio, which consists of anything ranging from a suite, to a stage, to a corner of a tournament area.

Due to the nature of the tournament circuit, at any given time, either Smith, Sebok, or the show's guests could be playing in that day's event. While this provides poker's most timely content, it also can present logistical nightmares. When asked if playing professionally and then rushing over to talk poker on the air is difficult, Smith answered, "The hardest part is when you bust out of a tournament and all you want to do is go home, and you have to do the show; but actually, it helps. It makes you think about the game a little bit more."

As usual, Sebok offered an opposite opinion: "My first year [as a player] has given me a lot of confidence, so I have a lot to prove. I love the show. I'm dedicated to do it, we all believe in it, and I think we have caught lightning in a bottle, but I'm a poker player first."

This begs the question: When booking guests who could at any time be eliminated from a tournament, how do you keep them from tilting right out of the studio and back to their hotel rooms? Sebok answered thusly, "We know the personalities - both as players and who they are as people - so we can get a lot of people to come in. It's like we're sitting around drinking beers in a bar. We're going to cut each other up, and we're going to talk poker. People feed off how comfortable that is."

Another answer is teamwork. Each of the show's three hosts, as well as producer Danny Egelhoff (who mixes and edits the show), wears many hats, and contributes to the writing, producing, and wrangling of talent for the show.

Smith commented, "The biggest reason for our success is that Danny and Scott are absolute masters at what they're doing. They both have so much talent. They make the show."

Huff also shared most of the credit. "What makes it successful is the ability of the co-hosts and the producer to infuse all of our personalities," he said.

The Future
Strangely, the show's future seems to be the only thing Gavin and Joe agree upon. Providing a satellite radio pun, Smith said, "I think the sky's the limit. I think that we have the best guests, the best poker content, the best advice out there, and Scott is the best I've ever heard. I think he's superentertaining. I think we put out a fabulous product. I think we could go anywhere."

Sebok agreed. "We have high hopes, and I would love it if it became a national massive thing. If poker keeps growing, they're going to need more shows, like a Baseball Tonight, and I think the three of us are perfectly set up for that."

Huff, who is still working diligently to tighten up the show and take it in the right direction, can be his own harshest critic. But, he is still excited about offering The Circuit listeners the best poker content - period. "Maybe we haven't even really seen the poker explosion yet," he said. "As long as poker continues to grow to a point where people want this kind of entertainment, the show can go as high as poker goes."

With this entertaining and knowledgeable trio at the controls, count on CardPlayer.com's The Circuit to continuously roll out goods that can help take your game to the next level.

Sirius
CardPlayer.com's The Circuit is now available weekdays (Monday-Friday) from 8:06 a.m. to 9 a.m. PDT on Sirius satellite radio Channel 122. Hear the best poker radio show around as it joins big names like ESPN, Howard Stern, Maxim and E! Entertainment on this satellite radio provider.

Bellagio
Bellagio Resort Casino is where The Circuit got its start. Bellagio's continued support of the show will be on display all summer long as its world-famous poker room becomes The Circuit's permanent studio during the 37th-annual World Series of Poker. Come play some poker and watch the show recorded live.


On The Circuit, Poker's Biggest Names Offer Tips And Tales, and Trash-Talk Each Other From The Tournament Trail.

Here Is A Peek Into The Studio:

Erick Lindgren On What It Takes To Be A Great Poker Player
"The first thing you must have to be a good poker player is the ability to gamble. It's not math, it's not people skills; it's just a sick ability to gamble. The best players, the highest-limit players, have an innate ability to gamble. They're just born gamblers. To be at the top of this game, that's what you must have."

Mike Matusow On Early-Level Tournament Strategy
"I've been told, and I have always played like this, that until the antes get into the pot, you should play snugger than a bug in a rug. And that's the truth. Mike Sexton will tell you that Stu Ungar never played a pot, never played a hand, until the antes went in there. So, I always stuck with what Mike Sexton told me. So, my advice to everybody out there is: Until the antes get in there and you can start playing a little poker, just play solid and tight and try to wait on some cards and hope they come your way."

Layne Flack On Keeping The Betting Lead In No-Limit Hold'em
"Not a lot of good can come out of paying off with a big hand when you're beat. I mean, that's the worst feeling in the world. So, you're better off leading, and if they move in on you or make whatever play they make, you're out only the original bet. But if you play it in a way that you don't know where you're at, and you have to call huge bets, you might lose a lot more with two aces than you were willing to risk on a bad situation."

Kenna James On The Qualities That Make A Good Poker Player
"The qualities that go into making a good poker player are discipline, patience, understanding, and empathy, which is feeling what the other person is feeling so that you know whether he's weak or strong. You know, we don't really talk about empathy as a quality that goes into making a good poker player. But I'll tell you, it's one of my strengths when I can look across the table and feel what a person is going through, because I've been there."

Tim Phan On Low-Limit Cash Games
"If you play at a lower limit, a lot of people are going to call. They're going to try to draw to a funky hand so that they can bust you. That's not bad. But in a higher-limit game, the money is the pressure, so you don't actually need to be sneaky. You can put pressure on by betting a big number, knowing that another big number is going to follow another big number. In a lower-limit game, I say, always go for a sneak attack. Just play it slow and sneak up behind them."

Harry Demetriou On Betting The River
"People are very afraid on the river. They're afraid to bet big. They think they're going to lose their opponent. A lot of people don't think about pot odds on the river, and you can get away with betting a lot more. What they tend to think of is, do I have the best hand or not? You can actually get a lot more out of people than they think. When good players make hands, they can lose more, but they win more with those hands when they stand up. That's just the nature of the beast."

Joe Sebok On Showing An Opponent Your Cards When He's Made A Good Laydown
"Stupid, stupid, stupid. The stupidest thing that you can do is to play somebody, a great player, who makes an amazing laydown and then say, 'By the way, let me show you how great you are, as you made an amazing laydown. Get some more confidence and let's keep playing.' It's the stupidest thing that you can do."

Blair Rodman On No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments
"If you make mistakes in no-limit hold'em, make them on the side of being aggressive, not on the side of being scared."

Barry Greenstein On "Running Bad"
"Running bad is a statement about the past, not the future. I can look back and say I've been unlucky over the last session or last few sessions, but it doesn't dictate what's going to happen in the future, and people forget that. It actually does (affect the future) for a lot of players, because if they've been running bad, they now start playing badly."

Victor Ramdin On Adjusting To Tough Players
"I switch it up against certain players who I know can very easily outplay me. So, you have to give certain players that respect, especially when they have position on you. That means so much in this game: position. It's incredible what position means in this game."

Mike Matusow On Playing Big Slick Preflop
"You never put a chip in with ace-king when you're the third one into a (raised) pot. Never. Ever. Ever. Never."

Gavin Smith On Heads-Up Strategy
"If you're not a very strong heads-up player, probably the number one thing you can do is not play hands from out of position unless they're particularly strong. Don't just call raises because, 'Well, we're heads up and I have king-four, and king-four is pretty decent because it's a king.' Or, an ace-six. The guy on the button's raising. He's got position. Give it to him. But just make sure that you play your button aggressively - very aggressively. What's going to happen is, he's going to play more hands from out of position with you. You're not going to play hands from out of position. So, you're going to end up having the power of winning the bigger pots."

Greg Raymer On Amateur Mistakes In Large-Field Tournaments
"A common mistake I see people make in bigger tournaments - you know, big full-field tournaments - occurs when they're convinced that I'm bluffing them or that some well-known player is bluffing them. So, they call before the flop, and they call on the flop, and they call on the turn. And, finally, they throw their hand away on the river.

If you're going to call a guy down three times, call him the last time. Unless there's some new tell that you just spotted, that you didn't see on those first three rounds of betting, you can't fold your pocket pair on the last round unless that last card is a scare card that you think completed his hand."

Haralobos Voulgaris On The 50-50 Rule
"I don't really want to fight anybody, but I do have a 50-50 rule for when I'll fight. The only time that I'll fight is if it qualifies in the 50-50 rule. If you're over 50 and under 5 feet tall, I'll fight you."

SHOW HiGHLIGHTS

The Circuit has broadcast 61 episodes since its premiere back in December of 2005. The following are famed episodes and watershed moments from The Circuit history. You can download these episodes from the archive at www.CardPlayer.com/thecircuit.

Dec. 21, 2005
Five-Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio
The Circuit premieres at Bellagio with hosts Scott Huff and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow. Special guest Daniel Negreanu and Matusow talk tournament strategy and divulge a little more than they want to. Hear how it all began.

Jan. 29, 2006
Borgata Winter Poker Open
Gavin Smith's premiere as co-host. Scott and Gavin talk to guest Nick Schulman, the youngest World Poker Tour champion ever, about life after his victory, Internet poker, and Jay-Z.

Jan. 31, 2006
Borgata Winter Poker Open
In this classic episode, Scott and Gavin talk to 2005 World Series of Poker runner-up Steve Dannenmann and his home-game chums - "The New Cut Crew" - about Steve's improbable WSOP run, dissing Phil Hellmuth at the Tournament of Champions, crack, transsexuals, and more; rated NC-17.

Feb. 20, 2006
L.A. Poker Classic
The Circuit goes Hollywood with its first celebrity guest ever, James Woods. Scott talks to Woods about his deep finish in the L.A. Poker Classic, celebrity poker, and bluffing Johnny Chan.

Feb. 25, 2006
L.A. Poker Classic
Special guests David Tuchman and Bart Hanson from the webcast Live at the Bike discuss a variety of cash-game considerations. A must-listen episode!

Feb. 27, 2006
Bay 101 Shooting Star
Scott and Mike talk to Gus Hansen about his early successes, the "big game," and being one of People magazine's sexiest.

March 6, 2006
NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship
Joe Sebok jumps into the booth for the first time as a guest co-host. Scott talks to Jim McManus about his heads-up match with Mike Sexton, poker books, and his forthcoming A History of Poker.

March 28, 2006
Reno Hilton World Poker Challenge
Scott, Gavin, and Joe talk to Mark Seif about his back-to-back World Series of Poker bracelets, the advantages of being a maniac, and the PPT.

April 19, 2006
WPT Championship at Bellagio
The Circuit returns to Bellagio. The guys interview Phil Hellmuth. The biggest name and biggest personality in poker talks about poker etiquette, his "Poker Brat" persona, and boyhood friend Chris Farley.

April 21, 2006
WPT Championship at Bellagio
Gavin and Joe are named official co-hosts. Freddy Deeb gives his seven tips for winning poker.

April 23, 2006
WPT Championship at Bellagio
The guys talk to Michael "The Kid" Gracz about tournament strategy, and poker and family life, and Gavin loses $5,000 on the air.

May 16, 2006
Mirage Poker Showdown
The most entertaining The Circuit of all time. Haralobos Voulgaris talks about his fight with Freddy Deeb, a waitress with big hands, and risking his life savings on the Lakers.

June 6, 2006
Mandalay Bay Poker Championship
The Circuit guys get first crack at interviewing the new hostess of the WPT, Sabina Gadecki. Harry Demetriou talks about laying down kings, male breast implants, drinking vomit, and why Joe Sebok stands no chance in his World Series of Poker prop bet with Gavin Smith.