Some nights, when I can’t make it to a card game, I am still thinking about going to card games, fantasizing about it really. Once in a while, to cure the pain, I’ll fire up some poker hand videos on YouTube, and passively play along. One of the things I like to do is search for videos of places I’ve played, I think it makes it easier to imagine being at the table. The other night I was looking at some videos of people playing at Foxwoods and saw in one a guy I’ve played with a bunch at Roger’s getting angry over a hand. He was getting bent out of shape and challenging the guy who (presumably) beat him to a heads up contest. Classic Teddy, I thought with a laugh.
Through this little fixation of mine, I’ve discovered poker vloggers. For the most part, this is a hard act to pull off. Poker on tv is great because of the multiple cameras, even on the whole cards, and the drama of the flop, turn, and river. Contrast this to a guy stuck in traffic en route to some casino in New Jersey talking about how he’s going to play a little more aggressive this afternoon, and it’s easy to see why DYI poker videos are tough to pull off. I was about to just say I’ve had it with these poker vlogs until I stumbled across Andrew Neeme videos on YouTube.
I suppose there’s a chance that if you haven’t slogged through other poker vlogs to get to Neeme’s videos, you won’t have the appreciation for them that I have. In fact, you might be better off without this appreciation, but if you find yourself looking for poker videos online, check this guy out.
Neeme plays mostly 5/10 games in Vegas and California. The videos begin with the standard montage of a guy getting on the road or at home getting ready for a poker game with the difference being the quality in production. Neeme is generous with the atmospheric music, and while I am generally not a fan of that genera, it fits in perfectly with the strolls through the luxurious casino environs on way to the poker tables. You feel like you are there, ready to mix it up, and as invariably seems to happen in Neeme’s videos, win. Most of the videos make it a point to have a shot of him cashing out, which is routinely multiple racks being filled and stacked with pristinely gorgeous poker chips. I find this effect to be intensely cathartic, and I supposed that’s its intention.
The videos generally run a little under twenty minutes, and also feature hand histories. Neeme’s thoughts are coherent and well thought out, but they’re not necessarily going to provide good poker players with anything they aren’t already familiar with via poker books and web forums. I often correctly guess what he’s going to do before he reveals it during the hand history section, and I don’t think I’d stand a chance making a living at Vegas 5/10 games, even if I was rolled for it. There are a few ways to think about this, of course. One, this qualifies more as entertainment than academic. A treatise on triple range merging wouldn’t fit with the overall vibe of the show. I also don’t think it would work with Neeme, who is far more like a friendly older brother showing you around the town than a poker savant. I’m not saying he isn’t a great player, he definitely appears to be in the aforementioned cash out scenes, but having watched a number of these videos now, I have to say that it’s very difficult, if not damn near impossible, to catch even the faintest whiff of arrogance from the guy. His YouTube channel appears to be wildly successful based on the comments and letters he gets from fans, and the biggest factor in this success I would have to imagine is the fact that he’s such a nice guy. You can’t help but like him.
If there’s one drawback to the show, and this is not a big enough one for me to stop watching, but I would say, it does seem at times like there is more to meets the eye with this channel. By that I mean, the recurring motif of waltzing through an immaculately fancy casino, followed up by a quick hand history in which you nod your head along, yes, Andrew, I would have played that exactly the same way has a very seductive “Let’s go to Vegas” quality to it. There are instances where he heads to a bar afterward and it seems keen to let you know where it is, etc. My hunch is, he’s getting paid to promote some of these places. I don’t have any issue with this, good for him, he deserves it. My only issue with it is that it makes it seem like winning big money at poker is just an easy thing to do like being a cool guy with a nice camera, but again, whatever, it’s all about the vicarious fantasy, which this channel delivers really big on.