It’s hard to keep track of all the ways Lupe Soto has contributed to the poker industry. Not only did she found the Women in Poker Hall of Fame in 2008, she’s been instrumental in launching the Ladies International Poker Series, Senior Poker Tour & Women’s Poker Association to name a few. Soto’s roots in poker run deep. She recalls how when she started playing at her local casino, 5 card stud was the only form of poker on offer. Throughout all the changes the industry has gone through, it’s ...
Jan 01, 2024•54 min•Ep. 52
If there’s anyone championing women in poker, it’s Erin Lydon. The Poker Power president has an incredible passion for not only the game, but also the lessons we can learn from it and apply to everyday life. From working on Wall Street to speaking at Tedx events, Lydon has had an incredibly decorated professional career(including being the Vice President of JP Morgan for 6.5 years). However, she’s spent the last 4 years in leadership positions at Poker Power, where they teach women+ about the ga...
Dec 01, 2023•44 min•Ep. 51
On this month’s episode of The Heart Of Poker Podcast, Kara Scott speaks with poker player, writer and fellow podcast host David Lappin. Not one to mince words, Lappin is known for calling it as he sees it when it comes to his writing. However, as this podcast unfolds, we learn that he’s far from motivated by clickbait titles or attention seeking behaviour. Interestingly, both Kara and David found poker through TV. Lappin reveals that a writing gig, where one of his characters was a poker player...
Nov 01, 2023•50 min•Ep. 50
If you’ve ever found yourself at a RunGood poker tournament or sporting one of their signature t-shirts, then you have Tana Karn to thank. The mastermind behind the apparel and live event brand sits down with Kara Scott for a candid exchange on his humble beginnings. As a first-generation American born to Thai parents, he talks about his upbringing in his parents' restaurant and how that experience formed the foundation of his hospitality skills. His father’s advice of “build things to last” cle...
Oct 01, 2023•47 min•Ep. 49
If you’re familiar with Brazilian poker players, then you will certainly have heard of Felipe Ramos. Playing professionally for 16 years now, Ramos currently sits at 4th in the Brazil all-time money list and has racked up a whopping $3.6 million in live earnings alone. Kara and Felipe actually worked together over 10 years prior, so the two have a level of comfort that lets them get deep right off the bat. Ramos opens up about how he left a 6-year career in finance to pursue poker and the disapp...
Sep 01, 2023•49 min•Ep. 48
Alex O’Brien is a fascinating person - poker player, science writer and author. She first captured the poker industry’s attention when she won a tournament which should have resulted in a high profile heads-up match with Dan Bilzerian. However, when the match fell through, it ignited a conversation around women in poker and the role of ambassadors in our game. Her new book ‘The Truth Detective’ will be published later this year and it uses the game of poker as a blueprint for how to discover tru...
Aug 01, 2023•48 min•Ep. 47
You may already know quite a bit about Johnnie Moreno AKA ‘Johnnie Vibes’ from his popular vlogs and videos, but in this episode of The Heart of Poker podcast, he dives even deeper into life’s big questions with host Kara Scott. The two walk back through Johnnie's personal history with the game of poker and how his incredibly tight knit family group has been such a huge source of joy and support for him throughout his career. He has a deep curiosity about life and loves to throw himself into new...
Jul 01, 2023•44 min•Ep. 46
Nemo Qiyu Zhou (also known online as AkaNemsko) is a gamer, esports star and content creator with an impressive following. After learning chess at the age of 3, she found incredible success in the game, earning herself title after title. A women’s Chess grandmaster, Nemo gave up professional chess to focus on her life, and although you can still find her streaming chess, other games including poker, round out her interests now. In an interview recorded in November 2022, Kara and Nemo get into so...
Jun 01, 2023•44 min•Ep. 45
With over $60 million in live tournament earnings, Justin Bonomo sits squarely at the top of the all-time money leaderboard for poker. No stranger to controversy or strong opinions, Justin opens up to The Heart of Poker’s Kara Scott about topics ranging from Burning Man, what he wishes people knew about him, his greatest fears and his idea of an absolutely perfect day. Justin reveals to Kara what he’d love his life to look like in the future and the importance of connection, love and friendships...
Apr 27, 2023•45 min•Ep. 44
Angela Jordison was named 2022 GPA Breakout Player of the Year after narrowly missing out on two GPI POY awards. Not only a fierce competitor, and a real joy to watch on the felt, she’s a fan favourite and for good reason. During their interview, Angela and Kara discuss how important it is to have a positive impact on the poker community. Not one for empty words, Angela recently put her money where her mouth is. She tells the story of what prompted her to spearhead an initiative along with her f...
Mar 31, 2023•46 min•Ep. 43
With his recorded winnings closing in on the $20 million mark, it would be easy to think Italian high roller Mustapha Kanit’s greatest skills are on the felt. However according to Kanit, it’s his natural willingness to embrace making mistakes and his drive to confront his fears that are his real super powers. In this candid and personal interview, Mustapha tells the story of his early entry into poker and the lessons he learned along the way. In fact, his love of games started from a very young ...
Mar 01, 2023•39 min•Ep. 42
With 4 WSOP final tables under her belt already, Brazilian poker pro and streamer Vivian Saliba is a force to be reckoned with at the PLO and NLHE tables. The 888poker Ambassador’s drive to succeed in poker was actually born out of necessity. At just 18 years old, while her family was contending with financial difficulties, a young Vivian played poker to put herself through college and pay her bills. Failure was not an option for her. With that kind of grounding in the game, it’s no wonder she p...
Feb 01, 2023•44 min•Ep. 41
For this episode of the Heart of Poker podcast, Kara digs into the history of one of the most prolific and recognizable voices in poker commentary, David Tuchman. With extensive credits, going all the way back to the early 2000s for Live at the Bike, David Tuchman is easily recognizable as one of the OG player/broadcasters of the poker industry. Kara and David start off discussing how they became friends, traveling the poker circuit and working on many of the same poker broadcasts over the years...
Dec 31, 2022•49 min•Ep. 40
With a wealth of experience in poker, British funnyman and commentator Nick Wealthall has an insight into the industry that rivals anyone. Currently one of the main voices of 888poker’s live and online events, Nick has had a long and storied past in the industry. In fact, it was nearly 20 years ago now that he and The Heart of Poker host Kara Scott were doing commentary on a tiny, middle of the night cable TV show in London. The two are old friends and have since worked together on many of the g...
Dec 01, 2022•49 min•Ep. 39
Well known for his incredible work ethic, both as a poker pro and as the founder of his own training site Learn Pro Poker, Ryan Laplante believes that life and poker reflect the hard work we put into them. Laplante took down his first bracelet in a 2016 PLO event as one of the highlights of a live poker career that started the literal moment he turned 21. When Black Friday shut down online poker, Ryan waited an agonizing 4 weeks to be legally allowed to play live and he was standing at the doors...
Nov 01, 2022•49 min•Ep. 38
If you follow poker vlogs, then you have no doubt come across The Drawing Dead vlog by Jaman Burton. Burton, who is one the most influential poker vloggers in the space, brings something completely unique to the table in the form of a poker vlog with graphic novel style illustrations woven in. And while it may be nice to gain some recognition within the poker community, Burton shares with Kara that it’s not all roses. Between the pressures of being an “influencer”, having opponents who may know ...
Sep 30, 2022•57 min•Ep. 37
One of the more notable names from the ESPN era of the World Series Of Poker is undoubtably Greg Merson. Merson, who took home $8,531,853 for winning the Main Event in 2012, instantly became a household name within the poker community. Having gotten sober a year prior, his story and accomplishment became an inspiration to many who battled addiction. But where do you go after winning the Main Event? For Merson, his obsession with becoming the best version of himself motivated him to seek out ways...
Sep 01, 2022•48 min•Ep. 36
On this episode of The Heart of Poker, Kara goes deep with poker player, social media maven and tv personality Tiffany Michelle. Michelle, who many would recognize on and off the felt, first made a splash in the poker world at the 2008 World Series of Poker, when she finished 17th out of 6844 players, making her the last woman standing. In fact, it was that huge accomplishment that Michelle credits for opening the doors to many of the opportunities she’s had in her life since. It wasn’t all posi...
Aug 01, 2022•50 min•Ep. 35
On this episode of the Heart of Poker, Kara is joined by prolific businesswoman and poker powerhouse, Katie Lindsay. Lindsay, who has racked up nearly 2.5 million dollars in live and online cashes combined, has been a been a mainstay in the poker community for many years dating back to pre-Black Friday. After getting hooked on poker by the fascinating story of Chris Moneymaker, she got a foot in the door of the industry by writing for a poker magazine and eventually started an agency where she r...
Jul 02, 2022•44 min•Ep. 34
In this episode of the Heart of Poker Podcast, Kara Scott speaks with long-time friend and colleague Lon McEachern. An absolute poker legend, known as the "Voice of Poker", Lon McEachern has been one half of the commentary team that started providing commentary for the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2003. And for many years Kara has been right there with him as part of the WSOP broadcast team. The two developed a strong working relationship and friendship that shows in this far-ranging disc...
May 31, 2022•49 min•Ep. 33
On this episode of The Heart of Poker, Kara sits down with a true online poker OG, Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet. Van Fleet, who regularly crushed the biggest online MTT’s in the mid 2000’s, continues to grind to this day and currently sits at #3 for all-time online poker winnings with over $20,300,000 in online cashes. But his journey to this accomplishment hasn’t been without its share of challenges along the way. Now nearly 9 years sober, Van Fleet recalls multiple occasions where he punted his e...
Apr 30, 2022•54 min•Ep. 32
Outside of big-name players, few people have had such an impact on the growth of poker globally as World Poker Tour President & CEO Adam Pliska. Pliska, who has now been part of the iconic WPT brand since 2003, is credited as being the driving factor behind the company's expansion into numerous foreign markets around the world and exposing new players to the game through their big-budget, final table productions. However, for all the accolades, you’d be hard pressed to find a humbler person ...
Mar 31, 2022•47 min•Ep. 31
In a time where No-Limit Holdem still dominates the poker landscape, it’s rare to come across a young pro so proficient in mixed games as Benny Glaser. This is perhaps best demonstrated by Glaser’s most recent WSOP results, where he cashed in 5 events (including winning his 4th bracelet in the $10k Razz Championship and placing 2nd in the $25k H.O.R.S.E. event) for a total of $784,243. But don’t let these results fool you into thinking Benny is a one-dimensional poker grinder. As it turns out, h...
Feb 28, 2022•48 min•Ep. 30
Fresh off the heels of her 2021 GPI Player of the Year award, Nadya Magnus gives Kara a glimpse into the sacrifice and dedication it took for her to achieve this prestigious title. Magnus, whose first Hendon Mob cash dates back to 2008, has been steadily grinding the tournament circuit for well over a decade en route to the top of the GPI index. Her consistency paid off last year with her taking home $426,161 of her $1,287,596 total career earnings. But there’s more to the story. Magnus was in p...
Feb 01, 2022•46 min•Ep. 29
In this month’s episode, Kara asks poker pro Brandon Shack-Harris why it’s so important to bring the fun, the silly and the unexpected to the poker table. Shack-Harris is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner with $3.5 million lifetime tournament earnings. Top-level poker skill notwithstanding, he’s probably better known for his personality and antics at the poker table. Shack-Harris also made news when he voluntarily released his ROI numbers for every World Series of Poker he ever played. All told, S...
Dec 31, 2021•48 min•Ep. 28
In case you haven’t noticed after 26 episodes, Heart of Poker is about a lot more than just poker. We’ve had incredible guests from the top of the game share insights into their lives off the felt, including some of their most personal and intimate moments and struggles they’ve overcome. Enter Xuan Liu. Over a star studded career in poker Xuan has won over $3,000,000, but these days she’s just as interested in seeing how poker experience can be applied in other aspects of life. She and Kara disc...
Dec 01, 2021•46 min•Ep. 27
Patrick Leonard is an online superstar. He has collected $13 million in online tournament cashes so far, regularly just crushing online MTT fields. He’s no slouch on the felt either, with more than $2.5 million in live tournament cashes. That’s a huge amount of money in anyone’s book - even if money is ultimately irrelevant and we’re all just living in a simulation. That’s just one of the pretty out there theories that Patrick and Kara get into on this week’s episode of Heart of Poker. Patrick...
Oct 29, 2021•49 min•Ep. 26
Quite simply, Fedor Holz is one of the best poker players of all time and one of the most emblematic players of poker’s modern era. At just 28 years old, Fedor has more than $32,000,000 in live cashes alone. What makes all of this even more remarkable, is that poker is just one string to Fedor’s bow. As Kara says in this episode, he’s a true modern day Renaissance man and he’s a dream guest on Heart of Poker. Kara’s set of psychologist-designed questions were originally created to see if two com...
Sep 30, 2021•43 min•Ep. 25
Ebony Kenney is so much more than just a poker pro. She’s a model and a content creator. She’s an entrepreneur, a women's advocate and a life coach. And this week she’s joining Kara on Heart of Poker. Heart of Poker is all about stripping back the layers and getting to, well, the heart of each guest - and Ebony couldn’t be more open to the experience. Kara uses a specially modified set of questions that were originally designed by psychologists to see if they could get two complete strangers to ...
Aug 27, 2021•44 min•Ep. 24
This week’s guest on Heart of Poker is one of the biggest and warmest personalities in the extended world of poker. Kristy Arnett is a poker player and former poker journalist, but she is still very much in the world of media and content creation. As she mentions in the episode, Heart of Poker is right up Kristy’s street. Over her career presenting poker coverage for PokerNews and others, she developed a well deserved reputation for creating original and interesting content, the kind of stuff th...
Jul 15, 2021•41 min•Ep. 23
