Accolades for The Circuit

[shipitfish]

The idea of listening to Mike Matasow whine for a full hour certainly disgusted me. I therefore didn't check out The Circuit, Card Player Magazine's Internet radio show until just this week. However, it was a mistake to dismiss it so quickly.

First of all, they paired Mike with someone who actually has some broadcasting talent, Scott Huff. Presumably because The Circuit is dedicated completely to poker, it actually has some amazingly good content for serious players. Mike is kept under control mostly by his co-host, and while there are constant jokes about Mike and his personality, he actually remains mostly quiet during the long in-depth interviews with poker players.

One of the best things that has me going back and listening to all the past episodes for the year is the level of complicated poker discussion on the show. For example, I listened this week to interviews with Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer from early this year. Much of what they said, particularly Hachem's interview, was a level of poker discussion that is rare to find in audio media. Hachem detailed his thinking of his final table play at the WSoP last year, and really showed how he truly earned his place. There was also some to be learned about tournament play by listening.

I've always felt that Card Player did a pretty good job selecting authors for their articles. It's clear that they understand what their audience wants from an Internet Radio show. I look forward to their coverage of the World Series later this month.

I should note that they have it available as an MP3 Podcast, which is how I'm listening to it and downloading it to my audio player. I don't own an iPod, and for those of you Free Software geeks who, like me, don't own one either, you'll want to use some sort of “pod catcher” software. I happen to like this nice little program written by Eric Richardson. I assume a bunch of people are going to comment that I should use some Python program instead of a Perl one. :)