Poker Stories Podcast With David Tuchman

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.

From: Long Island, New York
Lives: Los Angeles, California
Live Tournament Earnings: $163,650

David Tuchman has one of poker’s most well-known voices, having been in the commentator’s booth for some of the biggest tournaments and cash games ever filmed. The New York-native got his start with Live At The Bike!, and then later Full Tilt’s Million Dollar Cash Game. While living in London and covering the NFL and NASCAR for Sky Sports, Tuchman also spent time with PokerStars for online and live events. In 2011, he began working with the World Series of Poker, and has continued to call the action every summer since.

Before finding poker and his career in sports broadcasting, Tuchman was in Los Angeles to pursue his passion for acting. He ultimately ended up with a few close calls, including a network TV series that wasn’t picked up, and a movie he was cut out of. His IMDB page has half a dozen credits, including appearances on shows such as Beverly Hills 90210, Party Of Five, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Highlights from this interview include childhood nicknames, scoring five goals for grandma, pros and cons of college, wearing many hats, being an extra for Pamela Anderson, close calls in Hollywood, why he had to miss his best friend’s wedding, getting cut out of a George Clooney movie, shoving Jason Priestley, double pay on Buffy, lonely lunches with Jennifer Love Hewitt, working for Sky Sports in London, calling the WSOP, the player who was banned from the broadcast booth, betting on elections, Springsteen tattoos, Slapshot > Goon, from Corey Haim to Jim Carrey, and casting Shawshank: The Musical.

The Transcript Highlights

On Being Cut Out Of A George Clooney Movie

Julio Rodriguez: Let’s talk about your acting career.

David Tuchman: Acting career? Career is a very generous word.

JR: You have some credits here [on your IMDB page]. It may look like extra work (as in an extra on set)…

DT: No, it wasn’t extra work. None of those credits you see are extra work. I did extra work. In fact, my first extra job was…. Oh man… It was a Pamela Anderson movie…

JR: Barbwire!

DT: Yes! You got it.

JR: My father took me to that… way too young. Do you remember what you did in the movie?

DT: I walked onto an airplane. I guess it was an airplane. I’ve never seen the movie.

JR: You’re not missing much.

DT: I was wearing a leather jacket.

JR: There’s a lot of leather in that movie.

DT: There you go. I saw Pamela Anderson. I saw the director, I saw the cameras. I said, okay, this is kind of cool. I went out and did a couple student films. I got an agent, a manager…

Another thing that’s not on the page is The Perfect Storm. They had an Air Force base, there’s a whole coast guard scene. I filmed for a week up at Point Mugu. They cut the entire thing, because the film was too long I guess.

I was really excited because it was George Clooney, and Mark Wahlberg, and Wolfgang Petersen was the director. I couldn’t believe I got this part. I know it was a small role, but I was going to be in the movie for about 40 seconds.

JR: You had lines.

DT: I had lines. We were filming for four or five days. My dad and my mom, and all of their friends were going to be able to go to the movie and say, ‘Oh, there’s David!’

JR: Did they at least tell you beforehand?

DT: They didn’t tell me, but I kind of knew. They called me up to make sure they had the correct spelling of my name, and then I didn’t hear back from them again… for a while. Then at the screening, the girl I was dating at the time said, ‘Oh, maybe you are still in it.’ And I said, ‘Nope. You see the guy who is dying right now? My scene was with him.’

So I feel like I had some close calls. ♠

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 Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

Catch up on past episodes featuring notables such as Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Bryn Kenney, Justin Bonomo, Antonio Esfandiari, Nick Schulman, Barry Greenstein, Michael Mizrachi, Mike Sexton, Brian Rast, Jean-Robert Bellande, Jamie Gold, Chris Moneymaker, 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.