Posts Tagged ‘media hit’

Maryland-based freelance reporter Bill Ordine recently penned an article for the LA Times entitled “Poker Professionals Ante Up for Charity“. While it’s primarily about high-profile projects like Ante Up for Africa and Bad Beat on Cancer, he uses yours truly as an example of smaller scale philanthropy enabled by poker:

“But the 26-year-old Brokos’ real passion isn’t poker. It’s coaching inner-city schoolkids in the art of debate. When he couldn’t get a paying job in education pursuing his interest in forensics, he used his poker winnings to support himself while he started the Boston Debate League, which has grown from three schools in 2005 to eight. Impressed with Brokos’ bootstrap work, the city school system provided funding for a full-time executive director to run the league, but Brokos continues to donate his time several days a week — with poker remaining as his means of support.”

I should clarify that technically, the Boston Public Schools (BPS) is not providing the full-time executive director. He’s solely an employee of the Boston Debate League (BDL), which is an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization that raises funds from individuals and public foundations (no poker tournaments yet). BPS does, however, provide stipends for teachers who coach debate, food and supplies for participating students, and train fare to help low-income students attend BDL events. Still pretty sweet to get this kind of national attention though!

Part Time Poker just published a short interview with yours truly. I’ve generally shied away from doing a lot of self-promotion, but this was a fun and original set of questions. They also persuaded me with liberal doses of flattery:

When you talk about approaches to poker, there are two extremes. At one end you’ll find players who are guided almost entirely by instinct and don’t spend a lot of time articulating their processes. At the other end you’ll find players like Andrew ‘Foucault’ Brokos, who spend so much time articulating their process that one wonders – when do they actually find time to play? All kidding aside, Brokos is an excellent player with a focus on mid stakes no limit cash and some interesting insights into what it takes to make both a good poker player and industry alike.

This month I’ve got two publications to report. First, my latest article for 2+2 Magazine, titled Float On, is now appearing in the March issue. It’s an analysis of when, whom, and how to bluff-call, including an in-depth example:

Suppose that when your opponent bets, you think there is a 30% chance that he has a hand strong enough to continue and a 70% chance that his hand is too weak to stand a raise. If you raise his bet, you will win the pot 70% of the time and lose the amount of your bluff 30% of the time. As long as you choose an appropriate raise size, that’s a very profitable proposition for you.If your opponent will play predictably on the turn, though, and many will, then it may be even more profitable just to call his bet and see what he does on the turn. The 70% of the time that he does not have anything, he will check, and you can now wager the same amount that you would have with a raise, or maybe even a little less, but steal the pot 100% of the time. The 30% of the time that he does have a hand, he’ll bet again and you can fold, saving yourself the amount that a bluff-raise would have cost you.  Read the complete post...

The Boston Debate League’s Fifth Annual City Championships took place over the weekend, and it was a great event. Nearly sixty students competed, which is actually a little low compared to the numbers we’ve had recently, but their enthusiasm more than made up for it. In the Varsity division, the reigning City Champions narrowly defended their title against a very promising upstart team. Meanwhile, a young school found a much-needed morale boost by closing out the JV division (that is to say, they won first and second place).

The BDL also got its first mention, and a fairly substantial one at that, in the Boston Globe, the city’s most prominent daily paper. The reporter did a nice job speaking with a variety of students, coaches, and administrators, and ultimately presented two of our most important themes: that debate is a rigorous academic activity that students nonetheless enjoy, and that it attracts all types of students, not only those who are already high achievers.

The credit for this goes to my girlfriend, who diligently reached out to nearly one hundred contacts at a wide variety of news outlets. Thanks, Em!

My latest poker article, Knowing is (Only) Half the Battle, is now appearing in the November issue of the Two Plus Two Internet Magazine. The article focuses on the way different betting lines taken in an otherwise identical hand can change which player has the edge:

“In other words, in two nearly identical situations, featuring two players in the same positions with the same pre-flop ranges and the same community cards and the same number of bets going into the pot, one of those situations is +EV for the Hero and one for the Villain depending on how the betting goes. If Hero bets flop, checks turn, and bets river, he is in a profitable situation. His opponent has given him information and also given up control over when and how money goes into the pot.

However, if Hero checks flop, calls turn, and finds himself facing a bet on the river, then he is the one who has given up information and control and now faces an unprofitable situation. This is a choice not about how to play top pair with a medium kicker but about how Hero ought to play most of his range most of the time.”

Enjoy!

ESPN tells me that I’m scheduled to be on one of tonight’s broadcasts, though they’ve been wrong about that before. My best guess is that it will be the 8PM eastern one, which focuses on Day 3, as that was when I rivered a two outer on the bubble that cost some poor bloke $22K. If I am on, I’ll try to post a YouTube clip here as soon as I can find one.

I was impressed, by the way, with the producer who called me. He asked for my online screenname, and when I told him Foucault, he said, “Oh, like the philosopher?” It’s not a reference that a lot of people in the poker world get, and arrogant ivory tower denizen that I am, I didn’t expect an ESPN producer to be on the short list.

There’s a 15-minute video interview with me over at Poker Savvy Plus that I think came out pretty well. It touches on how I got involved in poker, my playing style, some common mistakes I see, and how poker interacts with my non-profit work.

Frankly, I didn’t do a very good job of courting/attracting media attention despite my deep run in the WSOP. But here are a few links to coverage of my play:

Interview with Poker Stars

O By the Way Blog 1

O By the Way Blog 2

PokerNews Photos

Poker Savvy/Cardplayer Round Table

And honorable mention goes to the Hendon Mob, who reported that:

“Only five players — Andrew Brokos, Pat Dattilo, Marc Friedman, Vinod Jadav, and Stefan Mattsson — cashed in both the 2006 and 2007 Main Events. All were going for their third consecutive cash this year. However, only one player survived (and is guaranteed to cash). He is Stefan Mattsson, from Stockholm, Sweden – currently in 308th place).”

Really, 308th place? Sick run, Stefan. I’m really surprised there were only five of us who cashed in ’06 and ’07.

Also according to Hendon Mob, the record for consecutive cashes is held by Bo Sehlstedt, who cashed in 2004-2007 but failed to cash this year. C’mon, Stefan, we can take him.