Neeme and Owens: The BS is knee-high!

Poker Vlogs seem to have becoming more popular over the years. Sure, there are a few pros who have Vlogs, but most others are amateurs looking for some spotlight. Doug "drone" Polk is a great example of someone who has kept a Poker Vlog on Youtube for quite some time. The only thing I don't like about his Vlogs are 1) he incessantly gossips about others and 2) he has a propensity to drone on in every single one of his 20+ minute videos. But at least Doug Polk has the accolades and bankroll to back up his abundance of arrogance and self-adulation.

Today, this thread is going to be about two highly overrated and completely full of shit Poker Vloggers, specifically Andrew Neeme and Bradley Owens. If it isn't their clickbait Youtube titles, it is their laughable cardboard cutouts and audacity to offer autographs for their silly single digit IQ audience that follows them online.

Let me start with Bradley Owens. This kid is the king of Poker vlog clickbait. His videos are always the same rhetoric and narration of walking into low-stakes poker games at casinos and pretending to be some celebrity who is friends with everyone at the table. It is always the same BS where he goes on to incessantly drone on about "hand ranges" of his opponents as if he is some clairvoyant entity at every poker table he sits down at. He recently made another clickbait video about his MASSIVE high-roller cash games where he buys in for a mind-boggling $4,000. There is nothing educational about any of his contributions to the poker community other than being a D-list Youtube celebrity and promoting degenerate gambling and trying to convince his idiotic followers that grinding chickenshit cash games is going to be means to financial freedom.

Next is Andrew Neeme: Between Neeme and Owens having their heads so far up each others asses that I cannot tell where either one of them begins or ends, this wannabe Patrick Antonius is the worst of the two evils. This guy is a Mike Matusow waiting to happen. He looks like he is coming down off a coke binge half the time in his videos. He runs around card rooms pretending to be some type of poker ambassador and trying to sell the laughable idea that playing poker is a real career. This is the type of jackal who if hired by Johnnie Walker would try to sell boxes of whiskey to those walking out of an AA meeting.

I am so tired all of this BS where compulsive gamblers try and justify poker as a game of skill. Luck is a factor in this game and that fact alone constitute the game as gambling. There are people who roll dice on street corners and back alleys and make big amount of money in a short period of time and there is NO SUCH THING as a professional dice roller as far as I am concerned. Those who have made hundreds of thousands or millions from playing poker are nothing more than a small fraction of the field of the majority of losers in the game. These two shameless poker Vloggers will not admit that most top earning poker players hedge their poker buy-ins with stakes, sponsorships, endorsements, etc. If most of the top earners had to reach into their own pocket throughout their years of playing most of them would be living under bridges today.

I am going to get slammed for writing this and that is perfectly fine. I don't respect people who shamelessly promote and glorify compulsive gambling. The only winner in this game is the casino, or house. Toolboxes like Owens and Neeme are only popular and cool until the little bit of money they have dries out and they have no more chips to put on the table.

Poker is a game meant to be fun and not a livelihood. Those who defend it as being a livelihood only defend it until they are filing for bankruptcy or taking a second mortgage out on their home to feed their addiction. The fractional and consistent winners are exceptions to the rule. In closing, poker Vlogs do not offend me, but instead the shameless promotion of compulsive gambling being displayed all over the internet by tools like Neeme and Owens that will eventually go bankrupt at end up as card dealers for the very same casinos and race tracks they endorse in their videos.

never heard about these two poker vloggers ... I searched and see a bunch of clickbait videos...you also created the topic "Phil Hellmuth: a degenerate player". I don't see many topics like that lately, but there's good points in what you wrote.

It just pisses me off that people like them tarnish the integrity of the game. On the topic of these poker Vloggers, I am sick of every schmuck with a $300 GoPro and a $15,000 bankroll pretending they are David Sklansky.

I am sick of degenerate gamblers who claim that playing poker is a real profession and that they should some how be admired because they made some fast cash. Playing poker is tantamount to a guessing game or flipping a coin. 9 people can stand together and flip 9 separate coins 9 separate times whilst all choosing heads and the outcomes for each of the 9 individuals will be different.

When it isn't the casinos advertising poker under the glitz and glamour of their expensive marketing campaigns, no different that making cigarettes look cool for smokers by putting a dressed up camel in sunglasses on a billboard, then it is these degenerate gamblers trying to justify their unhealthy lifestyles so as not to be called addicts and degenerates.

I don't know how to play Golf worth a shit. But I can certainly go to a Golf course and find a bunch of old rich men with visionary problems and and make myself a ton of money and later brag to the world that I am a "professional".

There will be many that would make a counter-argument by stating that there are several poker players who have had consistent cash game win rates or tournament bracelet wins. I'll call bullshit on this defense since most of the top earning pros are making millions from one end and bleeding it out from another. I will also reiterate that most top earning players hedge these large cash/tournament buy-ins through stakes, sponsorships, and other side deals they cut unbeknownst to the general public.

People can play cards until their fingertips bleed and that is their problem. But these BS poker Vloggers who do nothing but pretend to be mind-readers and poker coaches with their ABC strategies really goes to show everyone how gambling addictions are now being justified and disguised under the pretense of having a real profession such as a physician, lawyer or astronaut.

If there were really such a thing as a master poker player, then the world would see a billionaire class of poker earners. Where are all of the so-called high-rolling poker pros from 10 years ago? Rheem, Elezra, Sheikan, Farha... Most of them lost back everything they made and finally decided to wake up to reality before they put themselves and family under a bridge. They are gamblers. Poker is gambling.

Sounds like lack of understanding of the game of poker on OP here and/or sounds like you lost more than you could afford to lose and are now railing against the game. (GA may be of help to you).

People surely do play poker just to gamble, just for fun, and just for "the luck." And that's fine. Most players are going to be lifetime losers at the game profit wise and many will tell you they're ok with that because it's entertainment. Within budget and reason of course many are fine losing their money for the fun factor.

But at same time others player for fun AND for profit, and skill , and challenges, and even some play for income and a living. And that's ok too.

The beauty of the game is that anyone can play and you can play for different reasons.

Yes there's luck involved and as for gambling, of course it is....but so is investing in the stock market we just give it a different name because it's still more socially acceptable.

But to dismiss the skill in the game is just frankly ignorant. No one says you HAVE to be skilled, or have to study, or have to care about odds/strategy/etc but accept if you don't then you're playing for the sheer entertainment (the cost of admission for a good time) and that's it. Nothing wrong with that but don't sit there insisting it's all luck, all gamble, all a ruse, then go further and single out people who are successful in the game for various reasons because you either lost too much or are jealous of their success.

@quick: First and foremost, your asinine assumptions about me having lost money and now being sour about it is entirely untrue. Additionally, I don't need to play poker for income since my family has a net worth well beyond most top rated pros out there, with the exception of men like Bill Klein, David Einhorn, Guy Laliberte, all in the billionaire category, which clearly dwarfs my personal net worth. Suggesting that I am some how "jealous"of the so-called success of an insignificant amount of nouveau-riche poker millionaires is beyond laughable. You can criticize me for the aforementioned, but I will take it with a grain a salt since I would rather be a rich man who worked hard for it than a degenerate gamblers who spends his life at a card table hoping not to pawn family heirlooms after getting a bad beat in a high stakes poker game.

Finally, I can point out endless examples of how perfect play and advanced strategy has been triumphed by sheer luck. Most of these top professionals are borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and, in extreme circumstances, robbing/cheating Peter to pay Paul. I said it earlier on in this thread and I will say it one more time so you can embed it into your thick skull -- Poker is gambling, plain and simple. The reason why people play the game is irrelevant. You can stand on your head and use Phil Ivey as an example of a very successful poker player and I would agree -- but he has lost tons of his net worth over the years to only have it replaced by sponsorships and private business investments. You erroneously stated that I claimed that there is NO SKILL in the game of poker -- and I would certainly like you to highlight where I said that in this thread before you put words in my mouth.

Here is an example for you:

You and I are at a table each with a million cash in front of us -- My AA versus your KK -- money is most likely going all-in and there is no running it twice... Explain to me where the skill comes in? Oh right, you have superhuman mind reading abilities and are going to fold the hand. Bullshit. Playing a guessing game and believing that you are Charles Xavier isn't going to get you your money back. You can then run around all the poker rooms and ask your friends to stake your action in efforts to chase your losses.

You want profit? Go get a real job! Open a company! Invest your money wisely! Sounds like you are packing your pipe with the same hallucination inducing products as Owens and Neeme.

if sheer luck are dominant in poker then libratus wont prevail

AI doesn't emotionally consider major financial losses, but instead only considers mathematical probabilities. AI is not going to rationalize pawning a virtual Rolex or mortgaging a home or borrowing money to try and recover losses. AI does not have emotional rational -- even with the most sophisticated machine learning technology.

this is just a silly suggestion
only spew what we can afford to spew
dont splash our rollex, home, & borrowed monies into the pot

@kozong: That is exactly right. This is also what I am alluding to with this thread.

Let me use Antonio Esfandiari as an example. He played in the One Drop tournament w/ a $1,000,000 buy-in. He won the tournament for a 1st prize of 17.5 million dollars. But what was not heavily publicized is the fact that he had backers to mitigate the potential loss of such a large sum of money.

Let me use Joe Cada as another example: Everyone wants to scream that "SKILL" is the major component in poker, but it is no secret that this lockbox steamrolled superior players to go on to win the main event. He made bad play after bad play and railroaded better players with sheer luck.

Playing poker and calling it a profession is pure BS. I can go an play basketball 5 days a week and that doesn't make me a professional or mean that I am going to be scouted into the NBA.

Poker went from a game of fun and competition and has transitioned into one BIG marketing ploy. People can call it recreation, entertainment, gambling, fun and/or a hobby, but to call it a profession is an absolute insult to those who possess real skills that benefit the society as a whole that we all live in. Shuffling chips and playing a guessing game IS NOT a tradecraft, but instead GAMBLING for those who want a quick high and fast money.

There are actually at least tens of thousands of professional poker players. There is definitely luck involved but there is also skill involved. Just because you can do everything right and still lose does not mean that you will eventually go broke. I'm just a regular Joe Schmo recreational poker play that has a separate full time job. I play for fun but I also track every session since 2014. If I can beat the game consistently then I have no problem believing that someone who took it much more seriously and was a pro could do the same. Now are they guaranteed to make 6 figures every year. Obviously not. Most will try and fail. But you may be selling the pros a bit short. Even though most go broke, there are a good number that can make ends meet or even thrive for years on end. I haven't watched all of Neeme and Owens vlogs but I just took it as an enthusiast documenting their journey. I missed the episode where either of them claimed to be some super crusher. What if I was a minor league baseball player but I really loved the game and made a vlog? That's how I see those guys. Maybe they eventually hit a downswing and go bust, maybe they get really good and crush, maybe they stay the same. Doesn't bother me either way. But maybe I missed the episode where they glorified gambling and encouraged others to lose money.

Poker is indeed gambling but you're not guaranteed to lose. How do you think Casinos make a killing hosting gambling of all sorts? They set the edge so that they don't pay even money. For example roulette has 0 and most times 00 so odds on red or black are not 50/50. That small edge is huge over millions of bets. They understand statistics so over time all the players will lose. Poker is only slightly similar in that you have to beat the rake. Against a player of exactly the same skill level as you, I would have to agree that it will come down to how the cards fall and the casino will always win while the players push money back and forth to each other and eventually lose it all to the rake. In real life we see players make massive mistakes all the time. That is the edge that pro poker players use to make a living and it has to be substantial enough to beat the rake. Which is why most try and fail because if you are average the rake wins.

I find this to be a very interesting thread considering what kind of forum this is. First, this is a short term game of luck and long term game of skill. Anyone can luckbox through a tourney score even though they may not be the most skilled player in the field. Likewise that person may not have a result like that again. The flipside of that is someone like Erik Seidel. The guy has been a top pro for like 30 years.

Wow what an interesting thread for a Forum like this. I really appreciate and admire the respect with which everyone talks to each other here, even if they dont agree on something, thats quite rare in this troll times.

Much respect