When PokerStars first announced Run It Up Resorts Rumble (RIURR), the primary tangible fruits of the company's partnership with Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, it was naturally seen as a showcase for Jason Somerville and his flagship stream. After all, the "onlive" event was arrange specifically to cater to Somerville's legion of Run It Up fans, because the main tournament can be held online but accessible only to these in attendance at Resorts.
However, other streamers even have seen a possibility to showcase their brands, and it's one Ryan Stryker, whose stream DonkGasm could be featured here on PokerNews, plans to make the most of.
"I think the development goes be an excellent one as it will give players in that a part of the rustic the power to peer the most recent and greatest new features PokerStars may be incorporating into their site in addition to a possibility to engage with one of the crucial top poker professionals within the world," Stryker said.
Indeed, RIURR might be a fascinating test ground for PokerStars because it attempts to perform goals on multiple fronts: expanding its general brand awareness and presence in New Jersey, exploring how best to make use of its land-based partner Resorts, and integrating Somerville's popular Twitch stream as a vehicle to both grow the sport and expand.
The experimental event will feature a $30 tournament accessible only to these on property at Resorts, with PokerStars qualifying a legion of players through promotions on PSNJ. Players not in attendance can still participate with a $10 side event open to PSNJ players statewide. Additionally, players can have the chance to satisfy and have interaction with PokerStars Team Pros like Barry Greenstein, Vanessa Selbst, Liv Boeree, Jen Shahade, Chris Moneymaker, and of course, Somerville himself at social events.
Stryker, for his part, certainly plans to have interaction with Moneymaker, as they've organized an upcoming prop bet. Matt Sanes, who shares the DonkGasm channel with Stryker, and Travis "Dramatic Degen" Darroch — another member of the PokerNews stream team — will face off with Moneymaker and Jonathan Little in a team-based heads-up match on May 18 at 3 p.m. It will likely be a turbo-structured best-of-five, with the losing team donating $250 to a charity of the winners' choice.
Stryker said he and Sanes developed a relationship with Moneymaker through Twitch, and they have been engaged on ideas for multi-media projects since hitting it off.
It's all a part of a continued effort from Stryker, a 30-year-old Rhode Island resident, to grow the DonkGasm channel and poker in general.
Stryker said his poker journey began some 15 years ago with $10 home games against friends and progressed to semi-professional play on PokerStars during his time in college before Black Friday hit. Grinding mostly sit-and-go tournaments and cash games, Stryker said he made it as high as 200NL before selecting a thorough change after all; he enlisted within the Army Rangers, where he said he served several tours of duty and fulfilled a lifelong dream.
When he returned to the U.S., he turned back to the sport he loved for a living, this time at the operations side of items as a dealer and floor manager while going back to university. He got back to the felt as well, beginning with live games after which returning to the net arena, where he was inspired to start streaming after watching successful presenters like Jamie Staples.
Stryker, who was streaming for a bit over a year and a half, immediately saw the price streaming dropped at the game.
"When a player watches a poker stream that is not accustomed to the game, it increases the possibilities of adding them as a brand new player to the game," he said. "WE PREDICT streaming is plus-EV for the poker community as a whole."
That runs contrary to the worries many players have, particularly within the wake of poker training that some say was a detriment to the sport. Disseminating advanced strategy, the thinking goes, eventually raises the full level of play to the purpose where it is very difficult to make a profit within the game, and everybody is simply paying rake.
"We couldn't disagree more," Stryker said, presumably speaking for he and Sanes. "THE REASON BEING simple — the more players which are exposed to the game, the more players on the way to start playing it."
He continued:
"The tactical information discussed on Twitch is sort of never extensive enough for a losing player to become a winning one simply by monkey see, monkey do. To ensure that that weaker player to reinforce their game, it requires significant practice of the concepts, multiple sources of content and rancid the table studying that 90 percent of Twitch players aren't going to follow through with as they're part-time, recreational players."
Thus, Stryker and Sanes have partnered up for GrindOrDie, which seems to be a training website in its formative stages, and DonkGasm. There, they stream cash game play from 50NL to 200NL, in addition to multi-table tournaments. They are trying to cater to formats their audience desires to see, in addition to incorporating fun videos that signify events occurring on screen within the games.
They've also branched out into HoldemX, Alex Dreyfus' pet project that seeks to blend traditional poker play with elements of e-sports-style gaming to attract a much wider audience. That provides DonkGasm a unique hook from other streams which are focused only on hold'em.
"The fun factor of it's tremendous," Stryker said. "It's like heads-up no-limit hold'em on steroids."
Hopping at the HoldemX hype train can also pay financial dividends down the street if the sport takes off.
"Right now it's 100% play money but we are hoping that it'll eventually go the actual money route," Styker said. "If it does, it is going to be a very long time before the sport is mastered which means that will probably be very profitable."
In the meantime, Styker and Sanes hope the partnership with PokerNews and the exposure they hope to recover from the weekend at RIURR will remain good both for them and the sport of poker as a whole.
"PokerNews the highest poker media name within the country at the moment and to have an affiliation with them alongside other top Twitch streamers is an exhilarating prospect," Stryker said. "In our opinion, the more players we get in front of, the simpler for not just us however the community as a whole."
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