Now that Burning Man is over for another year (it finished on the 5th September), Black Rock Desert is back as it was with no trace that 70,000 people where once there partying hard and rubbing shoulders with A list celebrities and a handful of poker pros.
Now that everyone is back in the land of the living, the poker pros who attended are back on social media—which is great for living vicariously through them — as we all know, pics or it didn’t happen.
This word sums up #burningman – so many great pictures; I will post all on my facebook page sometime this week! https://t.co/BXU02selUO— Jeff Gross (@JeffGrossPoker) September 04, 2016
38 hours’ travel down, 4 more to go till I’m at Burning Man. Much excite. Likely will be w/o service for a week, so everyone try not to die.— Cate Hall (@catehall) August 29, 2016
The Borgata Poker Open is now running, with $6.7 million in combined guarantees up for grabs until September 23.
For those of you who can’t make it to Atlantic City, all the final tables will be live streamed.
Asher Conniff returned for Day 1C of the action as he hopes to make it through a field of thousands to the final table. And it looks like he isn’t doing too badly.
During the WSOP, Remko caught up with Kara Scott to talk about her story in and out of the poker world.
They touch on Scott, which she reveals is actually a stage name, growing up in rural Canada, adopting a fake British accent upon moving to the UK as a teacher, dealing with grief and how she got to where she is today in the poker industry.
You can listen to the interview in it’s entirety below. But be sure to check out her Tweets below as she has some important words on the topic of dealing with tough times and mental health.
Clarifying her stance on throwing herself into work whilst dealing with grief, Scott took to twitter.
I felt pretty nervous about this coming out as I’m not used to being so open & honest, but I think it came out well. I owe poker a lot.— Kara Scott (@KaraOTR) August 31, 2016
One thing I want to say about the podcast at the start of this thread. In the last 30 min I talk about/around the worst year of my life.— Kara Scott (@KaraOTR) August 31, 2016
I say that poker 'saved’ me in many ways, by giving me an anchor & a focus during a time when I was in a lot of pain. Grief, trauma, ptsd…— Kara Scott (@KaraOTR) August 31, 2016
And it really did. It’s one of the reasons I love this game & this industry. But I also sought out professional help & that’s important.— Kara Scott (@KaraOTR) August 31, 2016
Working with a professional & focusing on my mental health when I needed to, that was key. Life can be painful. If you need help, get it ❤️— Kara Scott (@KaraOTR) August 31, 2016
That’s all. I just didn’t want to give the impression that burying oneself in work was any kind of alternative to real mental health help.— Kara Scott (@KaraOTR) August 31, 2016
From there Polk took to his YouTube channel to post a 32 minute video talking about how 2.5 years ago the guys struck a deal to coach each other: Polk to help Tollerene in NLH strategy and Tollerene to help Polk with PLO. But the relationship soon turned sour when Tollerene reneged on his side of the deal.
“This is a video I have debated making for some time now, mainly because of how upsetting the event was for me” Polk has said on YouTube.
“I have now decided that I want to get this off of my chest. With both my personal and business dealings with Ben Tollerene, I have had issues and want to bring those to light.”