The penultimate episode of Poker Weekly with Nick Schulman featured appearances from two guests, both new to the show.
Andy Batkin, a performance coach, poker player, and longtime friend of Schulman's, took the opener's slot. Schulman and Batkin met years ago while playing in the New York City underground poker scene at a card room called Ace Point Club. The two became fast friends, with Batkin later taking on a role of performance coach for Schulman.
"We became wonderful friends," Schulman said in his introduction of Batkin. "And as my career has progressed if I've ever been in a big spot, without fail, I talk to Andy the day of. Andy has ventured into kind of a realm of performance coaching – he has a very obsessive personality, but he's the real deal."
Through the first twenty minutes of the episode, Schulman and Batkin pack in a wide range of topics.
They go from picking up on live tells at the table and moments where that's come in handy to applying the principles of the legendary basketball coach John Wooden to poker – all of it incredibly compelling and worth a listen. Schulman also told listeners about how beneficial Batkin's coaching and motivational tactics have been for his own career before strongly recommending his services to anyone out there in need of a performance coach.
The Fox in studio
Schulman's second guest was ACR Poker Pro and high stakes crusher Alex Foxen, who spoke about his backstory and the origins of his poker career.
And then the conversation pivoted to a breakdown of three specific hands that Foxen played – three hands that Schulman wanted to know more about. The first was a particularly notable pot that Foxen had played against Phil Hellmuth at the final table of a $25K US Poker Open event back in 2022 – roll the tape below if you haven't seen it.
After some preflop shenanigans, Hellmuth ended up calling off an all-in for his tournament life with 
and ran down Foxen's pocket nines. It was a wild one, to say the least.
"I was actually kind of excited to talk about that one," Foxen said. "I think it was an orbit before, or maybe two orbits before I forget exactly what it was, but he [Hellmuth] had three-bet me from the big blind, exact same formation. I think he was a little bit deeper and he made it something ridiculous. I wanna say I made it 120K and he made it like 260K out of the big blind.
"I don't even remember exactly how the hand played out, but he ended up having kings. And from my experience with Phil, when he goes 260K with kings and then 350K the next orbit it's not kings, it's not aces, it's not anything good. It's always dust."
Foxen's read on the situation was accurate and the move should have worked.
"In my mind, in this spot, I was like, 'Sweet, free 350K, he's never calling,'" Foxen continued. "That's what actually makes the hand the most interesting because I might have jammed my whole range there, based on my interpretation. So, if I'm jamming my whole range, he might actually have a good call."
Whether it was a good call or not, it was made. Hellmuth stuck in his stack with the queen-rag and five community cards later he had twice as many chips as he started the hand with.
And that's poker.
Poker Weekly with Nick Schulman airs Saturday nights at 8:00pm ET on Sirius XM Radio Channel 82 and you can check out prior episodes on the Sirius XM web-player.
