Robbie Strazynski is a man about the poker industry, known widely for his thought-provoking poker productions such as Cardplayer Lifestyle and the Top Pair podcast. This week, we go behind the scenes with Strazynski to gain a unique perspective on professional poker and what it takes to make it in this game. He shares his strategic insights and reflections on many years in the orbit of the game’s brightest stars.
Strazynski has built his reputation on a love of poker, and has been in the orbit of some of the most popular players in the game. He spent lots of time work for and with poker media to cover the game in interesting ways. Today, it’s his full-time gig.
Cardplayer Lifestyle covers the life of poker players like no other, getting intimate details from behind the scenes of the biggest events in poker. Strazynski helms this operation and conducts the interviews, reaches out to media buyers, and runs the entire production. He also is co-host of the popular and long-running home game podcast Top Pair.
Strazynski has been around since Black Friday, and having started “at the bottom”, he has seen the poker world rebound and recover, though of course not at the level pre-Black Friday players were accustomed to. It’s folks like him that are working really hard to rise the tide in the poker world, raising all boats. He sees new investments in the game, a stronger level of comeraderie among competitors, and slow but steady growth.
“When you have good, strong personalities, that is something that attracts eyeballs,” he says, pointing out that grinders like Red Chippers who are removed from following poker celebrity media owe a steady stream of new players to those who cover the poker scene. In this sense, poker media is an essential part of the new player ecosystem.
Strazynski talked about playing himself, saying, “How could I not play?”
He cites his strong love for the game as the driving force behind all of his business endeavors in the poker industry. He loves to play whenever possible and looks forward to more poker playing in the future.
He talked about his gig as co-host of Top Pair podcast, and how he keeps things interesting week after week on a show solely about home games. He pointed out that his audience loves poker just as much as him, and even if they are not playing as much home game poker as they like, they get to live vicariously through segments like, “How Are You Running?”.
Strazynski is proud to have hosted poker legends like Mike Sexton to tell their stories about falling in love with poker in home games, and going on to make huge names for themselves in the poker world.
Listen to the podcast for the full story, and be sure to visit Strazynski’s projects: Cardplayer Lifestyle, Top Pair podcast, and his live poker note-taking app Poker Notes Live.
