Poker News Daily: Talk about your 2007 World Series of Poker bracelet win. Describe the experience of winning one of the most coveted prizes in poker.

Rodman: People ask me about it after it’s over and I said it was more of a relief. As it settled in, it took on different meaning. There is a lot of pressure, especially if you’ve been around as long as I have. It’s a relief. Now, I have one and don’t have to kill myself trying to get a second.

The WSOP has become such a grind. I was so exhausted at end of playing and it has become a young man’s game. Tournament organizers aren’t doing anything to change it. There is no reason for players to play 16 hours per day multiple days in a row. At the Bellagio, they play from 12:00 Noon to 9:00pm and then quit. That’s how it should be done. I’ve watched Doyle Brunson play every day and I don’t know how he does it. By the end, he looks burnt out.

PND: Have the tournament structures changed since you first started playing?

Rodman: They pay deeper than they used to. It’s not harder to get into the money, but it’s harder to get to the final table. The WSOP used to have one day tournaments and then they changed it to two days. Now, you have four or five day events and it’s still not long enough.

PND: Aside from your bracelet win, you’re also the co-author of “Kill Phil.” Talk about the book and how it came to fruition.

Rodman: Anthony Curtis, who is our publisher, has been one of my good friends for a long time. Lee Nelson came to him asking to write a poker book. He wanted to write it with a big name and we got in touch with a few people about it. They all had other projects going on and this was before other books like Dan Harrington’s. Lee eventually asked me to write it with him.

We put together an outline that covered just about everything we could think of in poker. After a couple of months, I saw that Harrington and Barry Greenstein were coming out with books. I said to Lee that we weren’t the biggest names out there and I didn’t want to do all of this work only to get lost in the flood. We needed to find a different approach that no one else was doing so that we stood out.

I came up with talking about the Sklansky System. If you really want to play and are a beginner, you have to get in there. There were a lot of pre-flop rankings available, but once players got post-flop, they were lost.

PND: Talk about your business ventures away from poker and the degree to which you’re currently involved in the game.

Rodman: I’ve gotten involved in a couple of things. A friend of mine came up with a new video poker game that I think has a chance to be successful and I’ve been working with him on it. Everyone needs funding now. The guy who invented Triple Play video poker makes over $100 million from the game per year.

Another one of my friends is in the steel business. He started working in it when he was 14 years-old and his uncle owned a steel processing center. He got stiffed by a big customer for a large amount of money, which put him behind the eight ball. That’s where I helped out. He saw the future of the steel industry as moving towards titanium. He knew that a low cost method of making titanium would revolutionize the industry. He ran across scientists from Idaho who had new processors for titanium. I wanted to get into something different and I think it’s going to be big.

PND: Do you see yourself getting back into poker in the future?

Rodman: I definitely needed a break. I was burnt out. I had played for 25 years and the bracelet was the apex. I started looking for a different avenue. I still play poker. I still love poker and am starting to get back into it. I learned a lot about business. I just joined a training site and bought a copy of Hold’em Manager. If you’re going to play online, you need a tracking program, so I’ve got the tools to get back into the game.

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