Poker Stories Podcast: Original Hendon Mobster And EPT Champion Barny BoatmanPoker Stories Is An Audio Podcast Series That Features The Game's Best Players and Personalities |
|
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.
Barny Boatman spent much of his youth traveling the world, living in numerous countries and working a variety of jobs that included factory worker, bartender, journalist, English teacher, computer programmer, board game inventer, and even movie reviewer. But it was in the poker world that he found his true calling.
The London-born player graduated from home games with his brother Ross to bigger games with fellow Brits Joe Beevers and Ram Vaswani, forming what would later be known as ‘The Hendon Mob.’ Now a tournament database site, the Hendon mob would previously travel the tournament circuit together, and was featured prominently on England’s Late Night Poker television series shortly before the poker boom.
Boatman earned the respect of his peers in the states with three consecutive final tables at the World Series of Poker. There were plenty of close calls, but he finally nabbed gold in 2013 in a $1,500 no-limit event for $546,080. Boatman earned his second bracelet two years later in Germany, taking down a €550 pot-limit Omaha event at the WSOP Europe series. He’s added another five WSOP final tables in the last couple of years, including a runner-up showing at the 2023 WSOP Europe €1,650 no-limit six-max event.
Most recently, he found the winner’s circle at the 2024 EPT Paris series, pocketing a career best $1.4 million for taking down the €5,300 main event. As a result, the 68-year-old has become the oldest European Poker Tour champion in history, and is now a member of Team PokerStars as a brand ambassador.
Highlights from this interview include what’s in a name, the Archway game, getting expelled from school, channel cyberia and mystic monk, poker TV pioneer, the isle of man tournament with John Duthie, being a logo, accidentally creating a database, going broke on his first trip to Vegas, a regretable hand against Hasan Habib, a three-hour heads-up battle for a bracelet, dealing with insomnia, game ethics, charcoal portraits, the crooning punk, humor from Victoria Coren-Mitchell, four-day cash game sessions, and being mistaken for a dead guy.
Photo by PokerStars / Danny Maxwell.
Catch up on past episodes featuring notables such as Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman, Patrik Antonius, Justin Bonomo, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Galfond, Nick Schulman, Fedor Holz, Barry Greenstein, Dan Smith, Scotty Nguyen, Mike Sexton, Jean-Robert Bellande, Mike Matusow, Maria Ho, Brad Owen, and many more. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes automatically when they are released.
Poker Stories is sponsored by Resorts World Las Vegas and their spacious and luxurious 30-table poker room and VIP lounge. Check out the daily tournament schedule, or visit the casino homepage for more.