Swirling beneath the never explicit politics of the poker scheme is the treatment of so-called “recreational” player. A lot of condescending, hypocritical stuff is said every day, on every platform, by every talking head about this source of all poker income. Occasionally, however, that tension is resolved when one decides to stop donating and start taking his own, or in this case, her own.
Jen Gianera is one of those players who decided to turn it around, and to great effect. Since taking on actual poker theory and not the Tips & Tricks clickbait that fuels the mediocre and parasitical poker training industry – APT is still, almost unbelievably, shockingly grabbing novice dollars – Jen has flown through the ranks and is now profitable at all the cash games stakes she has tried.
Of course, nothing is that easy or simple. Jen already has the advantage of being both more hard-working and more curious than many poker players. She also has the time and leisure to play and study on her own pace, having retired to Las Vegas after a busy and successful career serving the law and the people in southern California.
On today’s pod, we talk about her process of coming to be a winner. We go over the Las Vegas low-stakes scene, which has its hot and cool spots. Jen talks about the Sahara game, now coming to a pause after nice long run: can its success be duplicated elsewhere?
(Unfortunately we missed covering her rungood at slots and such – how do they do it? No one knows.)
We finish by reviewing an ambiguous spot from her run at the Monster Stack in this year’s WSOP – with competing incentives, how and why do fundamentals solve our problems for us when we are potentially destined to lose no matter what?
Monster Stack WSOP 300/500/500 9 handed 50Ke me
5 1500
7 c
9 c (villain)
1 c QJss
2 c
Flop Jc9s6d (8000)
Xxxxx
Turn Ts (8000)
1 3000
2 f
5 f
7 f
9 c
River 4s (14,000)
1 6000/?
9 18,000