The Heart of Poker

On this episode of The Heart of Poker, Kara sits down with a true online poker OG, Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet. Van Fleet, who regularly crushed the biggest online MTT’s in the mid 2000’s, continues to grind to this day and currently sits at #3 for all-time online poker winnings with over $20,300,000 in online cashes. But his journey to this accomplishment hasn’t been without its share of challenges along the way. Now nearly 9 years sober, Van Fleet recalls ...

Outside of big-name players, few people have had such an impact on the growth of poker globally as World Poker Tour President & CEO Adam Pliska. Pliska, who has now been part of the iconic WPT brand since 2003, is credited as being the driving factor behind the company's expansion into numerous foreign markets around the world and exposing new players to the game through their big-budget, final table productions. However, for all the accolades, you’d be hard pressed to ...

In a time where No-Limit Holdem still dominates the poker landscape, it’s rare to come across a young pro so proficient in mixed games as Benny Glaser. This is perhaps best demonstrated by Glaser’s most recent WSOP results, where he cashed in 5 events (including winning his 4th bracelet in the $10k Razz Championship and placing 2nd in the $25k H.O.R.S.E. event) for a total of $784,243. But don’t let these results fool you into thinking Benny is a one-dimensional ...

Fresh off the heels of her 2021 GPI Player of the Year award, Nadya Magnus gives Kara a glimpse into the sacrifice and dedication it took for her to achieve this prestigious title. Magnus, whose first Hendon Mob cash dates back to 2008, has been steadily grinding the tournament circuit for well over a decade en route to the top of the GPI index. Her consistency paid off last year with her taking home $426,161 of her $1,287,596 total career ...

In this month’s episode, Kara asks poker pro Brandon Shack-Harris why it’s so important to bring the fun, the silly, the unexpected to the poker table. Shack-Harris is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner with $3.5 million lifetime tournament earnings. Top-level poker skill notwithstanding, he’s probably better known for his personality and antics at the poker table. Shack-Harris also made news when he voluntarily released his ROI numbers for every World Series of Poker he ever played. All told, Shack-Harris competed ...

In case you haven’t noticed after 26 episodes, Heart of Poker is about a lot more than just poker. We’ve had incredible guests from the top of the game share insights into their lives off the felt, including some of their most personal and intimate moments and struggles they’ve overcome. Enter Xuan Liu. Over a star studded career in poker Xuan has won over $3,000,000, but these days she’s just as interested in seeing how poker experience can be applied ...

Patrick Leonard is an online superstar. He has collected ​​$13 million in online tournament cashes so far, regularly just crushing online MTT fields. He’s no slouch on the felt either, with more than $2.5 million in live tournament cashes. That’s a huge amount of money in anyone’s book - even if money is ultimately irrelevant and we’re all just living in a simulation. That’s just one of the pretty out there theories that Patrick and Kara get into on this ...

Quite simply, Fedor Holz is one of the best poker players of all time and one of the most emblematic players of poker’s modern era. At just 28 years old, Fedor has more than $32,000,000 in live cashes alone. What makes all of this even more remarkable, is that poker is just one string to Fedor’s bow. As Kara says in this episode, he’s a true modern day Renaissance man and he’s a dream guest on Heart of Poker. Kara’s ...

Ebony Kenney is so much more than just a poker pro. She’s a model and a content creator. She’s an entrepreneur, a women's advocate and a life coach. And this week she’s joining Kara on Heart of Poker. Heart of Poker is all about stripping back the layers and getting to, well, the heart of each guest - and Ebony couldn’t be more open to the experience. Kara uses a specially modified set of questions that were originally designed by ...

This week’s guest on Heart of Poker is one of the biggest and warmest personalities in the extended world of poker. Kristy Arnett is a poker player and former poker journalist, but she is still very much in the world of media and content creation. As she mentions in the episode, Heart of Poker is right up Kristy’s street. Over her career presenting poker coverage for PokerNews and others, she developed a well deserved reputation for creating original and interesting ...

It’s an exciting time to be Vanessa Kade. Fresh off by far her biggest win after taking down $1.5 million dollars at the Sunday Million, Vanessa sits down with Kara to discuss how she got to this point in her poker career. It’s been quite a journey - from moving to New Zealand alone at 16, to travelling around South East Asia and even a near death experience on an icey Canadian highway. As always on Heart of Poker, Kara ...

Heart of Poker is a podcast built around guests opening up and letting Kara into their personal lives - but this episode is something else. Right from the off, Kara and Ali dive into some of the biggest questions of all, from spirituality to dealing with loved ones passing away. For the first time ever in public, Ali talks with grace and clarity about dealing with personal tragedies and grief early in his life - and how in an oblique ...

With the 888poker WPTDeepstakes events beginning just around the corner on April 15th, Kara is talking to yet another of the most recognizable voices from the World Poker Tour. It feels like Vince Van Patten has already lived a couple of lifetimes’ worth of experiences. He’s been a professional tennis player, a Hollywood actor and screenwriter, and now a beloved poker personality. But this interview is a new one, even for him. Kara is using her special set of psychological ...

In honour of the first ever WPT Deepstacks and 888poker online collaboration (April 18-26th on 888poker), Kara is talking to professional poker player and WPT commentator Tony Dunst. If you’ve ever tuned into a WPT broadcast, Tony’s voice is going to be instantly familiar. Only this time, instead of analyzing bet sizing and ranges, he’s answering Kara’s special menu of “36 Questions to Fall in Love”. Tony has had an amazing life so far. From growing up in the “safe ...

We are thrilled that Episode 18 of Heart of Poker is our first ever family sequel! Last week we had Phil Galfond answer Kara’s set of specially designed psychological questions, and this week it’s the turn of his wife Farah Fath Galfond. Farah is lucky (and talented) enough to have made it in two separate careers: acting and high stakes poker. She starred in Days of Our Lives for almost a decade, and also has multiple cashes in the WSOP ...

Phil Galfond is one of the most thoughtful and interesting people in poker, and his wide ranging personality is plain to see in the latest episode of Heart of Poker. Phil is an OG in online poker and his PLO Galfond Challenge matches against some of the best players in the game have become legendary over the last few years. He’s also got 3 WSOP bracelets for good measure. Using her menu of psychologist-approved questions, Kara gets personal with Phil. ...

Few people have seen more of the poker world than Mori Eskandani, albeit Mori has done most of it from behind the camera. Known as "Uncle Mori" to players and crew, Eskandani is the visionary behind many of poker's most iconic television broadcasts. A poker player himself, Mori is also a long-time friend and mentor of Kara Scott.In this episode of Heart of Poker, Mori shares fascinating stories from his professional and personal lives. Kara and Mori have a high ...

Televised poker was a phenomenon and it drove the game's growth for years. Poker on YouTube is no less a force and in this episode of Heart of Poker, we talk to one of its pioneers. Andrew Neeme has been vlogging about poker for almost a decade and he puts it all out there on his channel. Even so, he told Kara Scott that this was the most personal interview he's ever done.As someone that makes a living playing live ...

Poker Hall of Famer Jennifer Harman has seen it all. As one of the few women to battle her way into the high-stakes Las Vegas poker scene, she knows firsthand how exciting and challenging the poker world can be.We're so excited to have her on the Heart of Poker and even more excited to dig into her life away from the felt. Harman is an organ-transplant survivor and in this candid interview with Kara Scott she opens up about that, ...

We are SO excited to have Vicky Coren on the podcast. An accomplished writer, television personality and a massively successful live poker tournament player, Coren is one of the most intriguing guests we've had the chance to speak with so far. In this far-ranging and intimate interview,Coren is famous in the poker world for being one of the only people to win two EPT championships, and the only woman to do so. And while they do talk about poker, Kara ...