Radio Gaga

When Jesse May came up with the idea of doing a live poker radio show, I thought he was nuts. He told me we’d be doing it for a few hours a week from home. I must be nuts too as, before I knew what I was doing, I had agreed to sleep on a couch somewhere in East London for five half-weeks while we broadcast from a studio. Not ideal preparation for the WSOP, but about par for the course when Jesse is involved.

For some strange reason, some of poker’s biggest names were happy to talk to us. The likes of Harrington, Hellmuth, O’Dea, Durrrr, Smith and Sexton were interesting to listen to, but I prefer the funny bits, and there’s been several of those. Phone calls from Deano, Nicky Power on credit card debt, Annette being frank about being possibly slow-rolled by Isabelle, Gary Clarke’s Channing impression, Barny pretending he thought the show was sponsored by Full Tilt, Action Jack being very honest about “that” hand against Ivey, Kevin O’Connell on “do not disturb” signs in Dublin hotels and Mad Marty waking up every child in the Midlands as he shouted bed time stories down the phone were hard not to find funny but Rory Liffey and Full Flush took the biscuit.

I listen to Rory’s phone call about Pokerstars, the EPT and the integrity of the show every day. The Full Flush thing was priceless, he challenged just about everybody. After the show, he called Jesse in a bit of a panic about something he’d said. He phoned again twice the next morning. Jesse thought that he wanted something he’d said edited out but it transpired that he wanted to make sure everything was left in!

We’ve run out of star guests, so this week our 9 o’clock guests are Mike The Mouth, The Devilfish and some guy called Tony G. Sounds boring to me.