Yes No Casino Exclusive Interview with Jason ‘WackyJaxon’ Glatzer

Jason Glatzer is an editor for PokerNews and PokerSoftware and is an admin on PocketFives under the screenname “WackyJaxon”.  More recently, he became the project manager of the Cash Game Festival Online. “WackyJaxon” has been a poker player himself for many years pre-dating online poker’s origins. He was part of the initial boom in the early part of the century playing.

We sat down with “wackyJaxon” to learn more about the Cash Game Festival and a bit about himself personally.

I hadn’t heard of the Cash Game Festival before can you tell us a bit about it and how it came about?

The Cash Game Festival began a few years ago with a few festivals in Estonia. While there are tons of festivals to choose from for tournament players, there weren’t really options for cash game players.

The festival proved to be very successful in its home country, and this year expanded with exciting stops in London, Malta and Bulgaria before returning back to London a few weeks ago. The festival will be returning to where it all began in Tallinn for five days of non-stop poker action from Nov. 16-20.

Like all Cash Game Festivals, this stop will also feature many activities off the felts including welcome drinks, a sporting activity, relaxation at a spa, dinner at a fancy restaurant, and a VIP party at one of the most exclusive clubs in Estonia.

What will the online version of the Cash Game Festival entail?

As you already know, the first-ever Cash Game Festival Online takes place from Oct. 24-30 on the iPoker Network. As part of the festival, 30 streamers will be sharing their cash game action in one hour blocks starting today, Monday Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. (UK time). The stream will be carried on each individual streamer’s Twitch account, the Cash Game Festival Twitch account, the Cash Game Festival website, and a variety of media outlets.

The streamers include some well-known pros including Bryan Paris and Daniel Charlton, some eSports stars, and recreational players including Staking 101 owner Stacey Brown. Staking 101’s Daniel Rapley will be featured today with Stacey, Glenn Fogarty, and Brett Milley joining in on the streaming action on other days. You can check out the full schedule on the Cash Game Festival Online webpage.

In addition to the individual hourly streams, the 30 streamers will face off in a competition on a three-hour televised feature table. They will be broken out into groups of six where Monday through Friday starting at 10 p.m. (UK time) they will be facing off on a password protected table against each other.

The streamers will be hosting the action on each of their individual Twitch accounts on a five minute delay, while the Cash Game Festival will be toggling between views on their channel to show a unique perspective each hand. Additionally, the two commentators will have on a separate monitor be able to see the hole cards of all players on the table since which will make the broadcast similar to that of a televised feature table that takes place during a land-based Cash Game Festival.

The biggest winner of the feature table each day will then face off on Saturday at 10 p.m. (UK time) for the final feature table where the biggest winner here walks away with a Cash Game Festival Tallinn package valued at €2,000.

What’s in it for the players?

In addition to players being provided with a unique form of entertainment, iPoker is running daily and weekly challenges throughout the week. The challenges are pretty easy to complete and those completing daily ones win a ticket to a €2,000 freeroll along with ring game tickets, while those qualifying for the weekly freeroll will play in a €20,000 Cash Game Festival freeroll where the top five players win a €2,000 package to Tallinn and 100 players walk away with €100 each.

How did Tallinn become to be the chosen place for the Cash Game Festival this time around?

The festival organizers always planned to return to where it all began in Tallinn after a great year traveling throughout Europe. The festival will take place at the Olympic Park Casino, which recently opened up in the city.

Since many from the festival live in Tallinn, the activities away from the festival should be awesome. Some of the activities include welcome drinks, relaxation at a spa, a sporting activity, dinner at a fancy restaurant, and a VIP party at one of the most exclusive clubs in the city.

How much of a success were previous festivals?

I have personally been to three festivals this year including two at Aspers Casino in London and another at Platinum Casino in Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. As someone that is primarily a cash game player myself, they were truly awesome with more than 120 hours of nonstop poker action.

The poker room was filled at both casinos at peak times with cash game tables with just about any game you can think of running. Of course, the majority of the tables were no-limit hold’em. To say it was a success is probably an understatement as the Cash Game Festival plans to expand next year with many new stops and will also take place more often than this year.

However, what I like the most about the Cash Game Festival is the activities away from the felts. Of course I come for the poker, but I have met many friends for life through the bonding away from the felts.

What is it like working with the Cash Game Festival, PocketFives, PokerNews, and PokerSoftware?

I have to admit that this has been challenging to balance it all. Temporarily my family time has taken a back seat while I work mornings, afternoons, and evenings trying to balance everything out.

I love poker and also love working in the industry. I also do not mind a challenge. I will reflect more on this after the festival is completed next week, but other than missing out on some family time, it has been a great experience for me personally.

What do you enjoy most about what you do?

This is a great question as in my previous “life” I was an international financial controller for a billion dollar telecom company. While I was good at what I did, when I moved from London to Lithuania to begin a new chapter in my life, I decided it was time for a change. I no longer enjoyed dealing with numbers all day long, and do enjoy the world of poker which has been a hobby ever since I was able to shuffle a deck of cards.

What I enjoy the most is interacting with poker players every day both on a personal and professional level.

Be sure to catch all of the action from the Cash Game Festival this week. Details of the 101 team and the full schedule can be found Cash Game Festival Online Schedule and Staking101 Team

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