Interview With Joe Sebok

The son of longtime pro Barry Greenstein and a poker-media maven himself, Joe Sebok has racked up almost $2 million in career winnings and landed himself at two final tables at the World Series. As he gears up to rep for Team UB in this year's main event, Joe told THP about hosting Poker2Nite on the Versus network, practicing yoga with a Playboy Playmate and meeting his dad at the tables at the WSOP.

So you already predicted that the main event at the World Series of Poker would be huge this year - throwing out the exact number of 6,932 entrants on Poker2Nite - what gave you that estimate?

"It just continues to go up every year. I just anticipate that will continue to happen. I've spoken with Ty Stewart and Seth Polansky over there, and they already have a couple countermeasures in place in case the numbers start to get unbalanced on the day of the main event. Poker grows every single year - that's the bottom line. Even though in the States, we sort of feel like the UIGA has kind of curtailed that. What we see, certainly in the World Series of Poker, is that those numbers continue to go up, regardless of what's happening in the United States."

How do you plan to balance being a player vs. being a media personality with a news show?

"It's going to be brutal. Luckily, I have a lot of experience doing it now, for probably the third or fourth year - whether it's doing radio shows or PokerRoad. But it's tough. It definitely affects the way I play that I'm running these companies and participating in the media stuff. I wish there were some rule or trick, but I haven't really found anything yet. I just try to keep everything in its own little compartment. When you have that many projects going on, you give each of them about 80 percent. So, if I'm focusing on poker at the moment, I still have people calling me about different things, whether it's the company or the radio shows. It's just kind of a constant fight to keep your head in the game while things bleed together."

Are you planning to report from the ground at the Series?

"PokerRoad certainly will do that, with Twitter and PokerRoad Radio. We're still trying to figure out whether we can do Poker2Nite from there or if we're gonna continue on with it through the World Series - we're not sure yet."

Your prop bets have become famous -including, of course, the Superhero costume bet with Gavin Smith at the WSOP - do you have anything on the books for this year?

"We don't have anything right now. But I was lucky enough to win a dress-up bet for the main event with Rafe Furst, who has to dress up as a woman for Day 1. I got real lucky there - usually I lose those. But they're fun and everyone seems to enjoy them, so I'm game if someone wants to step up."

We'll consider that an open call for propositions. Getting back to your show, how have things evolved over these two seasons - what have you learned?

"First off, it's such a difficult thing just to get comfortable in front of the camera. We all come from a radio background, which is a lot more free-form. You can discuss anything and everything, and you don't usually have the same time constraints. But when you have 22 minutes worth of content on a TV show, you need to get in, make your points and get back out. You really can't meander around too much with your thoughts. I love doing it, and I think we've evolved. If you look at this week's show as compared to the first week that we did it two seasons ago, it's like night and day."

Is there anything you wish you could time-travel back to that first episode and change?

"I think it was just a function of maybe getting a little more practice under our belts. We didn't have any rehearsal - we just went in on day one and had to do the show. For me, that was a little tough; I didn't have the experience doing that. But I'm not one of those people who regrets much in life; I think you learn from everything you do. And even though I can't actually watch the first episode ever again because it's so brutal, I wouldn't want to change it … because that's all part of the process, man. It's just so different to have all these lights and cameras and people in your face, and you're trying to be funny and stuff. Like anything else, as you start to do it longer, you realize that whatever you do is fine. You start to relax. If you make mistakes, you play off of them, and you just give yourself a break. As soon as you do that, everything becomes easier and more fun."

Do you think that mentality translates to poker?

"Especially in poker. As poker players, we just beat ourselves up over these mistakes that we make. And the bottom line is that this is a game that we play. You make mistakes, and that's part of the game. Especially in a game like ours where you have to really take chances and throw your weight around. A lot of the time, the difference between people saying you're a genius or an idiot rests on the fact of whether you win the hand - not even whether you made the right decisions."

Working on all these different content projects, what have you learned about the poker audience and what they're looking for?

"There are a lot of different communities within the poker community. There're the hardcore strategy people who want to discuss the game's nuts and bolts. Then there are the casual fans who really just want to hear what Phil Ivey had for lunch and who hates Annie Duke this week. It's been hard for us to find that balance of satisfying everybody. One thing we've learned is just to create content that we like. You can get kinda bogged down trying to create something that other people are going to like, but when you make something that you enjoy doing, people really feed into that. That's always where the biggest hit comes from."

That's a nice lead into our next question -- How did you end up doing hot yoga with Playmate of the Year Sara Underwood on your show?

"Well, I do Bikram yoga already, so there was a connection there. But basically, part of Poker2Nite has become, ‘Let's see what stupid thing we can get Sebok to do this week.' So that was one. I say ‘stupid,' but really I'm lucky. I got to dance with Joanna Krupa. I got to play a little Roshambo with Rafe Furst. I got to practice some moves with Bruce Buffer. And obviously, this one took the cake, that I got to do Bikram yoga with Sara Underwood. Clearly I'm not complaining."

Despite having Barry Greenstein for a dad, you taught yourself the game, right?

"When I first started. Once I got to a certain level, I started asking him questions, and he was happy to sit down and talk about things. But certainly, I moved my way up in the cash games and small buy-in tournaments. And once I showed some aptitude, he sat down and discussed things. In the beginning, he said, ‘Just go play.'

What were your milestones on the early learning curve?

"I was so lucky. I took to it really quickly, and I treated it like a job, reading all the time and practicing on hand simulators. I'd sit and just figure things out. I had success early, too. The first tournament I ever played was a limit event at Lucky Chances Casino, right outside San Francisco. Somehow, I completely idiot-ed my way to finishing third in that tournament. When you have that kind of success that quickly - even though it's clearly not due to skill - it really fires you up. And that passion carries you through the next phase, where you just get your face kicked in continually. That's what happened with me."

How much are you playing these days?

"The answer is unfortunately, ‘Not very much.' It's tough, man. To be a good poker player, you have to stay in practice, but my life seems to have taken a slightly different path, which I haven't really resisted. It's one of the things I'm looking forward to, going into the World Series - trying to clear the schedule and just sit down to play poker. But, I think I'm going to be a little rusty for the first week or so. I'll play a little bit beforehand, but the work stuff off the table just never really stops. Hopefully a certain amount of it will be like riding a bike - I'm hoping that'll be the case."

If you run heads-up into Barry this year at the Series, what will happen?

"It's interesting, I don't know. If it's for a bracelet … He always says he wants me to win. It's certainly hard for me to argue that I'm better than Barry at this point, so I'd never try to say that. But I'd like to think that I'd play a good strategy. I'd try to take away the small ball from him, because I think if we play that, he'd pick me apart. But hopefully I could play some huge pots and get him all in, where the whole bracelet hinges on a 50-50 or a 60-40, because that's probably my best shot with him."