The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a battered old NES, a worn-down controller and some Sunny D-fueled 1942 alone in your afternoon poker news rec room.
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Today in the 3-Bet we find Hearthstone calling Randy Lew, Faraz Jaka wants to play in your Brazilian home game and Daniel Negreanu gets in your head.
1) "I Want to Be There Again"
Hearthstone will likely never hold a candle to poker when it comes to potential income - although with the rise in eSports prize pools these days, that may change one day soon, too.
What it might do, though?
Draw more of poker's best - who may have found their way into poker through fantasy games like M:tG or competitive video games - back to their roots for a feeling closer to the buzz they first got competing online.
David Williams and Eric Froelich have moved back to Magic; ElkY has definitely spent more time chasing Hearthstone titles and Twitch fans lately.
Randy "nanonoko" Lew may be feeling the pull, too.
As Lew, who was recently named to Team Liquid's Hearthstone Squad and is spending an increasing amount of time honing his skills in the booming game, says in a new interview with RedBull.com:
“I’m not playing it to make money. I want to play with the best of the best. You can’t buy your spot in a poker tournament, you have to fight your way there. It’s the same with Hearthstone. In order to get to the Top 8 or Blizzcon, you need to fight your way up there and win. You deserve to be on the big stage, on Twitch, and I want to be there again.”
If his track record in Marvel vs. Capcom and lifetime poker graph are predictors, we're pretty sure nano will be holding up his first major Hearthstone trophy before the year is up.
2) Jaka to Brazil: Let Me Crash Your Home Game!
Attention good poker people of Brazil: Are you interested in having a Homeless Millionaire in your home game?
The one and only Faraz Jaka - he of the $5.2m in career live earnings and famously featured as the "Homeless Millionaire' in this CNN Money clip - is coming back to Brazil on his travels and this time, he says, he wants something different.
Not the same tournaments in the same sanctioned card rooms - he wants to get off the beaten path and into the poker heart of the country via local home games:
#Brazil I want to tour your country! Let's make this fun! Who knows casual players w/ #homegames for me to crash? #MeChamaQueEuVou#poker pic.twitter.com/dMuU8mLgUb— Faraz Jaka (@FarazJaka) April 24, 2017
Any takers out there, Brazil? Tweet at him to let him know here.
3) Daniel Negreanu Goes Deep on Mental Game
There are few poker players who take the 'mental' aspect of poker more seriously than Daniel Negreanu.
As he says in the intro to his latest podcast - which features him and 4(!) expert mental coaches - as he gets older and the kids armed with math PhD and GTO get tougher, it's the mental game that keeps him at the highest levels of poker.
it's a doozy of a show with over 2h30mins of content so if you've ever wanted to improve your mental game, here's your shot. Listen to it below:
Or, you know, if you feel like your mental game is on point you can always learn Limit Hold'em. DNegs is pretty great at that game, too:
