Ante Up - the weekly poker podcast

Maybe you've heard of the Ante-up nation already. If not, get ready for the best thing that's come to poker fans all around the globe since cut cards were invented.
'Ante Up' is a poker podcast by Cristopher Cosenza and Scott Long, released on a weekly basis. In fact, the show is now running for two and a half years without missing a beat and has amassed quite a following, even winning the Chicago Poker Club's 'Best Poker Podcast' award two years in a row and Bluff Magazine's Readers Choice Awards for Best Poker Podcast of 2007.

Why have they become so immensely popular among the poker community ? Well, I think it's a number of things. First of all, the hosts are guys like you and me. They have a normal day job at the St Petersburg Times (Chris is editor there and Scott is the author of a gambling column) and in their spare time they are poker enthusiasts producing this podcast. While the first few episodes were clearly a testing ground for Chris and Scott with no prior experience in the field of podcasting (or radio for that matter). But they discussed some interesting subjects and they were not unpleasant to listen to. Then, after a couple of episodes, the magic between the two clearly sparks and you can tell they are having an absolutely great time telling you their funny anecdotes and tales of poker adventures. The fact that Chris and Scott are having such fun doing the show makes it so enjoyable to listen to. And not only are the hosts funny to listen to, they also feature some great stuff on their show.

The first few shows were very short, but a normal average episode weighs in at about 60 to 90 minutes of listening pleasure. Some light conversation about the past week starts each show, with Chris and Scott making fun of each others donk moves and bad beats. Both play regularly in cash games and tournaments in the Tampa bay area card rooms but once in a while they travel to poker destinations like Vegas or Atlantic city. And when they do, they always have 'hilarious' stories to tell; these are usually the longer episodes. Stories are shared of pros they met while reporting on the WPT, or hands they played at when they played at a Worlds Series event. These guys go around to all the places a poker player wants to be at and they come back to share the experience with the listeners of the show.

Then each episode has a 'main topic', where poker strategies or goings on in the poker world are discussed. More often then not, there will be a guest on the show. So far they've had some cool poker pros like Daniel Negreanu and Barry Greenstein on the show, but my favorite episode is when they had former FBI agent Joe Navarro on the show talking about poker tells. Imagine someone who's job has been interrogating people and making sure they tell the truth who's retired and gotten interested in poker. In this show he shares some of the things he has learned through years of experience, I certainly learned some valuable things that episode.

Another section featured is called 'The 1 minute mystery', where detective Columbo helps narrate a poker hand and the listener has to solve the mystery. These hands sound simple at first but there is always a twist. There is usually something in the story giving a hint as to what the opponent is likely to hold. Then at the end you are asked if you would call, raise or fold. The answer is revealed the next week and in the meantime discussed on the Ante up website. The show is then finished of with my favorite section, the 'hand of the week'. A hand is taken from a real game (either played by the hosts, or sent in by a listener) and told from the view of a player. After all the betting rounds are completed and the hosts have made their predictions on the holdings of the opponent, the hands are 'shown down'. Then the hand is discussed in depth, should the player have raised more pre flop, should we have folded, could we have taken the pot with a big raise.

All these debates have taught me a lot of second level poker thinking, maybe even some third level. And maybe more so then the rest of the show, in the hand of the week you can really notice how Scott and Chris their own play has improved during the 140+ weeks that the show has lasted. From a back room radio amateur show it has grown to a professional studio podcast with a world wide community of listeners.

I hope, and I think I speak for the entire Ante Up nation here, the Ante Up podcast is going to be around for many years to come. Of course, there is much more to be told about this wonderful podcast but you will just have to listen to it for yourself.

How to listen to the podcast :
There are currently over 140 episodes available to listen to. I personally found them searching the iTunes library for the term 'poker' and I still use iTunes to . As with any podcast, the episodes are all in regular mp3 format so you can download them to your portable media player or whatever device you prefer to listen to audio on.
If you don't use iTunes, you can find a list of all the shows for download here.

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List of Ante Up podcast episodes