Poker Stories Podcast With Brandon Adams

Poker Stories is a long-form audio podcast series that features casual interviews with some of the game’s best players and personalities. Each episode highlights a well-known member of the poker world and dives deep into their favorite tales both on and off the felt.

Age: 39
Lives: Miami, Florida
Live Tournament Earnings: $3 Million

Top Five Tournament Scores

Date Tournament Place Winnings
Sep. 2017 $50,000 Poker Masters 1st $819,000
Jan. 2017 $25,000 Aussie Millions 2nd $448,795
April 2018 $25,000 Hard Rock Poker Showdown 1st $370,000
Aug. 2017 $25,000 Hard Rock Poker Open 3rd $351,000
June 2010 $10,000 Stud WSOP 2nd $243,958

Brandon Adams is a high-stakes cash game player who now resides in Miami. In the last 18 months, the 39-year-old has done quite well on the high roller tournament circuit. Adams finished second in the 2017 Aussie Millions $25,000 event, third in the 2017 Hard Rock Poker Open $25,000 event, first in the $50,000 Poker Masters event and, most recently, he won another $25,000 event at the Hard Rock Poker Showdown. Adams now has $3 million in live tournament earnings.

Adams has written three books, including Broke: A Poker Novel and Personal Organization For Degenerates. He has also gambled for hundreds of thousands of dollars in big prop bets, and faced off against some of the best players in the world, even while teaching game theory courses at Harvard University in his spare time.

Highlights from this interview include unfashionable George, graduating college at 19, the desire to be a jock, Ivy League poker, teaching game theory at Harvard, dealing with smoke in Biloxi, cash poker at Binion’s, clearing his box to play heads-up pot-limit Omaha (PLO) with Sammy Farha, locking up a win in an insane high-stakes game, a push for transparency in swaps and staking, writing for degenerates, working with Michael Lewis, using Tool to run a 5:33 mile, a $600,000 pot that didn’t go to showdown, denying equity vs. realizing equity, owning 100 $300 shirts, and adopting an open-door policy.

The Highlights

On his epic $750,000 heads-up PLO win against Sammy Farha…

“I was really tired, and I had just ordered a big meal and half a bottle of wine, and had just told everyone I was going to finish it and go to sleep. Sammy [Farha] comes in, there was no other action in town… and he says, ‘I’ll play anyone, but we have to play at least $300-$600, and I’ll spot the button every hand.’ So I said, ‘Alright,” and went and cleared my box, ordered a cup of coffee. We played for three days.”

On the craziest cash game he walked away from…

“The craziest game I remember from that summer, and it’s funny the nature of your regrets; but I remember a completely insane game. It was me, Kenny [Tran]… then Rick Salomon, Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ [Sahamies]. Ilari was a great player, but this game was legendary because of how much he had to drink. So ‘Ziigmund’ is very altered, Rick possibly altered, Sammy [Farha] was in there, and the game was just going completely nuts. I was winning a lot, maybe sitting with $600,000 or $700,000, and everyone else was sitting with $600,000 or $700,000, and it was one of those games… this shit is just going in. Even knowing the edge that was there in that game, I just didn’t have the appetite for that spot at that moment. Are you willing to play a $1.4 million pot or not? And I just didn’t have the stomach for it. So I got up.”

On what he likes to spend his winnings on…

“I’m not a spender. I have a weird attitude about spending money. I drive an Altima. If you were to summarize my [financial] philosophy, it’s keep the basics low, so you can comfortably spew. This trip I’m doing a bunch of tennis lessons at the Aria, $200 a time. Stuff like that… One time I was playing poker with this guy from Lithuania, named Dominic, and he said, ‘I know you from poker TV, you’re the shirt guy. You always have the nicest shirts.’ And I took that as a big compliment. So that’s one of the things I spend money on. I have a lot of $300 shirts. I probably have… like a 100, so that’s my biggest leak. It’s strange, right?”

You can check out the entirety of the interview in the audio player at the top of the page or download it directly to your device to play on the go from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

Catch up on past episodes featuring notables such as Daniel Negreanu, Nick Schulman, Barry Greenstein, Chris Moorman, Bryn Kenney, Mike Sexton, Brian Rast, Scott Seiver, Freddy Deeb, Greg Raymer, Maria Ho and many more. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes automatically when they are released.