This week’s Podcast was a blast from start to finish as we welcomed Todd Arnold (NSXT2) and Nick Niergarth (gbmantis) to the show as our special guests.

Todd Arnold, while recognized as one of the premier online tournament players in the business, has often been criticized for his cocky attitude and chat-box banter while at the online tables. But beneath the facade lies an honest, mature, intelligent, and reasonable human being. This General Sales Manager turned Professional Poker Player discusses the game of poker in a manner that many listeners will be able to comprehend and relate to.

Todd is the owner of www.RealPokerTraining.com, which was the very first poker-instructional site to offer real-time videos (complete with voice analysis) to its customers. Members of his site along with his private students will no doubt find some of the background noise quite comical while listening to our interview with NSXT2. We contemplated editing out some of the outbursts from Todd’s live-in companions, but ultimately decided that leaving his “girls” in the Podcast would tie-in well with his theme of “The Uncensored Reality of Online Poker”.

Our 2nd guest has been on an incredible tear in online tournaments during 2006. Nick Niergarth (gbmantis) is a 21-year-old college student majoring in communication and Final-Tabling just about every major tournament in his free time.

Our interview with Nick will focus on his tournament strategy along with a pivotal date in Online Poker history; February 12th, 2006. That particular Sunday was Nick’s most-successful day at the online tables (a profit of over $65,000), but also marked a chain of events that led to the inadvertent exposure of JJProdigy’s multiple-account practices (it was Nick who originally posted Joshua’s other account ID on the PocketFives.com Poker Discussion Forum).

That well-intentioned post quickly fueled a heated controversy; causing a ripple effect throughout the Online Poker community that culminated in the ban of another high-profile account (ZeeJustin) on major poker sites. Nick “gbmantis” Niergarth will share his thoughts on that day and the ethics issues surrounding multi-accounting.

We look forward to your comments and suggestions for the PocketFives.com Podcast. You may e-mail us at podcast@pocketfives.com or call us at (206) 203 – 4730.

David Huber
dhubermex