My Chess Inspired Poker Podcast is back

My award winning podcast merging math and strategy is back with EPT Champion and PokerStars Pro Barny Boatman

Barny Boatman by Danny Maxwell, who won the 2024 Global Poker Award for this photo

In 2019, I launched the GRID, a podcast and a scavenger hunt. Its name is a nod to chess¹. More directly, the GRID is a reference to poker solvers, that in 2019, were beginning to take over poker study. Now it’s pretty much game over: The GRID won.

But the 169 hand² podcast hunt isn’t over. We recorded 83 episodes, while ticking off 74 hands³. That leaves us nearly 100 to go. And it restarts today.

We’re back with a banger: the legendary Barny Boatman, a founding member of the Hendon mob with over five million dollars in tournament earnings.

Barny was a perfect guest for the relaunch, as he embodies the core idea of my podcast, where math and story-telling meet. Each cell on the GRID is also a story.

That’s poker to me too: math in stories.

Barny’s own life also combines analytics and art, with his success in poker intertwining with varied careers, from journalism to teaching to bartending.

His GRID hand brings the same spirit: A pivotal decision from his 2024 EPT Paris victory, which earned him a Global Poker Award, broke records, and catapulted him to a PokerStars sponsorship⁴. He calls it his “sliding doors” moment.

If you’re new to the GRID podcast, you have an archive worth of episodes to catch up on—which you can enjoy on our interactive episode finder. For everyone else, I’ll be posting a “burst” of episodes, before settling into weekly installments.

On this substack, I’ll go beyond select episodes of the GRID with bonus content. This will range from strategy videos to essays on how a hand may apply to decision making outside poker.

You can also find the GRID in full on all the usual places, like Apple and Spotify.

These are all the episodes recorded so far, including Barny’s J9s. Find a clickable version on the GRID website.

Got a dream guest in mind or a favorite episode that newcomers should start with? Drop them in the comments.

And till then, welcome back to the audio sister of this Substack: the GRID.

1. We also featured many great chess players on the GRID including Grandmaster Peter Svidler, and popular substacker Nate Solon.

2. The Poker GRID is a 13x13 grid of all possible poker hands, which is used to facilitate studying, similar to the programs we use with an 8x8 chessboard.

3. Some episodes are bonus conversations that don’t center on a hand. And there are a few “repeats”, like Darren Elias and Angela Jordison, who both told hand histories centering on Ace-Eight Suited.

4. For UK you can try this link: THE (G)OATMAN IS RULING EPT PARIS 2024.