Poker Stories Podcast With Tyler Patterson

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.

To listen, visit www.cardplayer.com/poker-podcasts or download it directly to your device from any number of mobile apps, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify. Catch up on past episodes featuring notables such as Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Justin Bonomo, Nick Schulman, Barry Greenstein, Michael Mizrachi, Bryn Kenney, Mike Sexton, Brian Rast, Chris Moneymaker, Maria Ho, Joe Cada, Freddy Deeb, and many more.

Age: 36
Lives: Las Vegas, NV
Live Tournament Earnings: $2.7 Million

Top Live Tournament Scores

Tyler Patterson found poker before the boom, and worked in the industry as a dealer for a few years before making the switch to professional player. The Washington-native has split his time between cash games and tournaments, but has still managed to rack up more than $2.6 million in earnings on the circuit.

Patterson has a World Poker Tour title, having taken down the 2015 bestbet Bounty Scramble for $375,270. He final tabled the event the very next year, taking fourth for another six figures, and he very nearly did it three years in a row, finishing just short in 14th place. Patterson won a World Series of Poker bracelet in 2014, coming out on top of the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better event for $270,992. He’s also final tabled the WPT Borgata Poker Open, and has wins at the LA Poker Classic, and Fall and Spring Poker Round Ups. Most recently, he finished fourth after an ICM deal at the Bay 101 Shooting Star for $113,840.

Highlights from this interview include having golf in his blood, playing trumpet in a ska band, diving into poker after becoming a dealer, a crazy night at Spanish 21 with a biker bandit, Too Lay Lip Casino, the adrenaline factor in tournaments, playing $25-$50 with half his bankroll on the table, winning his WPT title, the interesting timing of his WSOP bracelet, a love for PLO, being notoriously bad at prop bets, weigh-ins for marathons, beer-per-hole golf matches, being hospitalized after a race with Matt Savage, Hoge Bogey, losing an $80k+ home game pot, Alabama poker, how feta cheese ruined his pizza job, Parmesan cocaine, bath tub crocodiles, and the link between Chipper Jones and Boyz II Men.

The Transcript Highlights

On One Of His Best Nights As A Casino Dealer

Tyler Patterson: In the pit, I was dealing Spanish 21. A guy comes in, and he is high out of his mind. I don’t know much about drugs at the time, and I have no idea what he is on, but he is clearly high. He has a motorcycle helmet in his hand, and he sits down at my table, and betting the table max, which was $200.

He goes on a good winning streak, and now he’s up a lot. He starts betting $100 for the dealer, almost every hand. I ended up getting tipped $3,000 for the night, and I was only sitting in this box for 30 minutes.

While I’m still at the table, police come running in. He ends up putting up a fight, he gets tased. The whole thing is just nuts. The story was, he had robbed a nearby house, stolen the motorcycle, parked it on the front door of our casino, and then came in to gamble. And then basically gave me all the money.

The police were asking a bunch of questions, and I obviously didn’t know anything. Do I have to give this back? But it turns out [I could keep it]. So it was a nice night for me and entertaining for everyone involved.

On Some Of The Craziest Prop Bets He’s Made

Julio Rodriguez: I heard about the bet you made on the golf course with a beer-per-hole.

TP: That was a really good one. It was me, Matt Affleck, Matt Jarvis, and Mike O’Malley. We played an easy course in L.A., and I had to break 90, and we had to start and finish a beer on every tee box. I was really cocky in the beginning so I was drinking like Hoegaardens and IPAs, but by the end it was all Miller Lite. By the end I could barely stand.

But I did play really well, and I did win the bet.

JR: So you are a good golfer. You had 18 beers and you broke 90?

TP: I shot 86, and I finished 9, 9, 8, to make the 86, so I was playing really well. Affleck made a 13 on the sixth or seven hole and gave up, but he was still wrestling with me in the fairway because he was as hammered as I was. That was a fun prop bet.

I also had another one where I raced Matt Savage across a parking lot. He gave me a small head start, but I had to run backwards. I crashed through someone’s mirror, and fell and injured myself, had to go to the hospital. It was a disaster.

JR: Did you win?

TP: No, I did not win. (laughing)

On Losing An $80K+ Home Game Pot

TP: My biggest cash games, are games that I have played with some of my best friends. I got into a Seattle home game when it was kind of in its infancy. It had maybe been running for about a year, with all of the people who played up at the Tulalip Casino.

By the time they invited me, I was already good friends with everyone. They knew I played for a living and there was nobody else in the game who was playing for a living. That game has been the biggest game I’ve played. Some of the biggest beats I’ve taken have come in that game. It’s a lot of money, but it’s also my best friends, so it’s easier to take it. Also, you don’t want to look like an idiot stomping around in front of [them].

There was a night when I was in for $3,000, and I had about $40,000 plus in front of me. Another guy, I don’t want to call him out, but he had about $50,000 plus in front of him. We were both drunk. I was trying to take advantage. We redraw seats after dinner, so I got to his immediate left. So every time he put chips in the pot, I was isolating. But I was drunk too, so it opened up some crazy things for other people.

It was an Omaha pot where he opened. I three-bet. Someone else called in the middle who was a good player, and he four-bet. I have an ace in my hand, so I can five-bet and fold if he does put it in, and I can get rid of the good player in between. So isolated with something like A-10-7-4.

JR: And for our listeners at home who don’t play Omaha, that is not a top ten hand.

TP: No. (laughing) It’s not terrible, but it’s not good at all. The other player folded, and now I have position on the other drunk at the table and we both have heaps in front of us. Another player in the game, Noah Bronstein, he recognized the train wreck that is now happening, so he pulls out the camera. This whole thing is videotaped.

The flop comes 10-6-4.

JR: So you have top and bottom.

TP: He fires out $5,000, and we have like $30,000 left each. There’s not too much he can have that’s better than mine, so I just put it in. So now we’re running it twice. The first one comes 4, 5 on the river. And he says, ‘fives full.’

JR: What?

TP: I was like, ‘That can’t be what you have.’ So I thought I won that one, but we turn the cards over and he really does have fives full. He had 3-5-5-6. So he was open-ended with a pair of fives. Then he made the straight on the other one.

Most of the pots I played were between $1,000 and $5,000 in this house, so a $80k pot was pretty intense.

JR: So did you reload for $3,000?

TP: I did. Actually, I may have bought in for more. ♠