This week on the PocketFives.com Podcast sponsored by Carbon Poker, we welcome Ryan gutshtallin Welch (pictured at right). The 11th player in the Online Poker Rankings, Welch is fresh off a win in the PokerStars $100 Sunday rebuy for a mammoth $80,000. The Nashville, Tennessee native also took down the $100 rebuy on PokerStars back in May, adding $34,000 to his bankroll. Welch fields a cavalcade of listener-submitted questions from members of the PocketFives.com community. Also appearing on the show this week is Rich TheEngineer Muny to give us an update on the Poker Players Alliance (PPA).Welch has had a bounty of final table appearances in the world’s largest online poker tournaments. In March, he was the runner-up in the Full Tilt Poker $1K Monday for $59,000. Two months prior, he took down an event held as part of the Ultimate Bet Online Championship (UBOC) for $66,000. Still, he maintains a fondness for cash games: “I’m probably one of the few MTT regulars who plays cash games on a regular basis. It’s a nice change of pace from grinding multi-tables. I would really suggest that a lot of the MTT regulars start playing cash games.” Welch added that cash games can help improve a player’s deep-stack skills.
One PocketFiver asked how tough it was for Welch to abandon his job and pursue poker full-time. Welch recalled, “From a financial standpoint, I had a good paying job for only being 23 or 24 years-old when I got out of college. I said that I wanted to take a chance at playing poker full-time, but I had to wait to build up enough money in my bankroll. The management was behind it too and said that if it didn’t work out, they would welcome me back.” It’s been an uphill march ever since for Welch, who owns the ninth best Pro Poll tally.
As you’d expect, Welch respects his peers greatly. He even rose into the Top 10 in the Rankings last week before falling from #8 worldwide back to #11. He explained, “I respect any player who plays for a living. This game isn’t for anyone. It takes a special person to do what we do day in and day out. Some of the days, it feels like you’re torturing yourself, but when it all comes together, the victories are sweeter than the downswings.” Welch runs six to nine tables at a time during the week and 12 or 13 on Sundays. He boasts a 30-inch monitor to help him navigate the online poker waters.
The turning point in Welch’s career came in October of 2007, when he joined the popular training site PokerXFactor and signed up for PocketFives.com. He told the Podcast team, “Until then, I didn’t have any poker coaches and really didn’t have any poker friends. I was playing baseball all through college, so all my attention was on that.” Welch has since contributed more than 1,000 points on the PocketFives.com forums. He is perhaps best known for winning the Sunday Warm-Up for nearly $100,000 one year ago.
Also joining the show this week is Rich TheEngineer Muny (pictured at right), the Kentucky State Director for the PPA. Muny breaks down an all-new letter to lawmakers that focuses on Senator Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) S 1597, which calls for the legalization and regulation of internet skill games like poker. An online form available on ThePPA.org takes less than one minute to fill out and is fully-customizable. During the 2009 calendar year, the PPA has sent 225,000 letters to Senators and Representatives on Capitol Hill.Check out the rest of this week’s PocketFives.com Podcast.
The $15,000 Carbon Poker rake chase returns in September. This high-stakes contest awards up to $900 to players who can generate $4,500 in rake over the course of the calendar month. All you have to do is sign up for Carbon Poker through PocketFives.com to participate. The Merge Gaming Network site proudly accepts players from the United States and offers 30% rakeback.
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