Pokulator:  You talked about being more sober when you play, what do you think about the use of drugs both prescription and recreational during poker tournaments?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Certainly I think it is all fair game for a lot of reasons.  First of all, I don’t think it is a desirable thing to depend on a drug for your performance, so I don’t have anything against using drugs.  In fact, I think the most desirable thing is just to have a really solid focused mind in your natural state and not need drugs to get to that point.  So that would actually be the ideal sort of mind frame for a poker player if I had to guess.  But, people down there use everything probably from weed to adderall, to coke, to who knows what, while they’re playing.  And my feeling is that it is probably not good for the players in the long run themselves, but it is not bad for the game if that is what you are asking.  I don’t think that it should be regulated in any way.  We’re not playing a sport down there.  You’re always tweaking your mind in one way or another to try to make it perform at what you consider its peak whether it is for poker or anything else.  That’s just life and nothing that we can regulate there.

Pokulator: Speaking of regulation, can anything be done to cleanup online poker with all of the scandals that have been going on recently?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  I think that self policing is the only thing that can really create an environment of integrity at least from my perspective as someone who doesn’t know what the software capabilities or security capabilities are for an online poker site.  What I do know is that there is a tangible online poker community and it is really about that community policing itself, setting ethics, and the people who wind up being a part of that community understanding ethics to begin with.  That has a lot to do with it, you just hope good honest people continue to populate poker.  I’ve always been of the opinion that more poker players are decent people than scumbags, although plenty of people take the opposite view.

Pokulator:  You’ve been very open about your backing or staking arrangements, do you think those types of deals should be made public before tournaments to give the feeling of integrity.

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Again I’m not so sure if that’s necessary.  It is more about integrity itself.  You don’t need the appearance of integrity if there is actual integrity.  I think for the most part all of the big backing stables that I am aware of gamble hard and they know what poker is about.  It's about being self interested and you can pretty much look at any backing arrangement as an individual self interested entity and I don’t see that as really the threat to poker.  Actually, I see just random soft playing and random collusion with no financial incentives sort of as a bigger problem.  People who just don’t understand that poker is meant to be played self interested all the time and you are never supposed to give hints to your friends, or play your friends differently, or kick anyone under the table because you think he is a nice guy or something.  Honestly, I think random little things like that create a worse overall problem for the integrity of the game than sort of staking arrangements which tend to be pretty much on the up and up as far as I can see.

Pokulator:  You mention poker being self interested, do you ever feel that because you are such an intelligent individual that you should be contributing more to society than just playing a game where money goes back and forth.

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  I feel that is a pretty one dimensional argument actually in the sense that anyone can contribute to society just by being happy and not detracting from society.  There are ways of being conscious, positive, productive and contributing to society in that way in your daily life no matter what you do.  And poker playing is just one job and one way of life.  I honestly don’t see that it is detracting anything from society.  Certainly we have seen that people are entertained by poker and people like poker players to some extent.  People enjoy getting Doyle Brunson’s autograph, so is Doyle Brunson not contributing to society by being available to the public there?  I think he certainly is.  I don’t really see it that much different than any other job.  Most jobs are just functions of just one useless repetition or another.  No one really contributes to society except as I said by just being happy and trying to be a good person.

Pokulator:  What job would you have or like to have if you weren’t playing poker?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  In all probability I would have some kind of grunt job if poker had never come along.  Although I’d like to think now if I wanted to get into another field of work I would strive to get into something creative, something to do with writing or production, something like that.  My last job was waiting tables and my job before that was working as a customer service rep in an office so in reality my career path was much less productive to society in my opinion than poker has been.  But, if I had my druthers even considering that poker exists, I might want to do something that was more creative or involved the intellect or whatever.  Although poker does stimulate a pretty well balanced number of stimuli in poker that I enjoy.

Pokulator:  You have one of the most popular blogs and you are a very well respected member of one of the most popular poker forums, why do you think that hasn’t translated into maybe more star power or a big endorsement deal for you in the poker world?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Part of the simple answer is just self promotion, or my lack of real self promotion.  Maybe I don’t have the best work ethic with my blog, I don’t really keep up my blog that often.  I sort of just maintain it for the sake of practicing my writing, expressing myself, and entertaining people.  Whereas I think that the real route to commercial poker success in terms of celebrity appeal is to put yourself out there for people to follow your antics or the happenings of your day, sort of day to day.  And I’m not a big fan of updating my chip counts or telling people about hands I’ve played that day.  I’d more just rather write an essay once every two weeks or something that entertains people.  As far as the commercial success, I don’t know.  I’m just an average white American guy and that doesn’t really translate these days into poker marketability.  Again you have to really pursue the self promotion aspect aggressively, at least that’s what Jean Robert Bellande says and I think he’s really right about that.  People like Jean Robert, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and Mike Matusow realize this that you really have to market yourself aggressively and sort of not care what people think about you in that pursuit.  You just have to go with the fact that you are marketing yourself and it doesn’t matter whether that comes off as unflattering sometimes or not.  And I’m just more private and I don’t have the tools or the wherewithal to get there necessarily.

Pokulator:  I thought I remember one post of yours on twoplustwo where you said that you weren’t white or don’t consider yourself white.  Am I incorrect or what do you consider yourself?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Hmmm.  I consider myself Jewish.  I am Jewish, but I think I’m white or I appear white to most people.  And I’m American and that’s all I meant in the sense of being marketed as a poker player.  It seems like if the opportunities aren’t drying up altogether they are going to Europeans and Asians and South Americans.  Well not Asians really but they should be going to Asians and they probably will as poker makes it way more into Asia and around the world.

Pokulator:  Do you think that there is a disproportionate number of Jews in poker?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  No.  It seems like a logical number.  In poker you really have a lot of people from all nationalities.  Pretty much any oppressed nationality is represented in poker, anyone who has had to struggle throughout history loves to gamble.

Pokulator:  What types of things do you like to do when you are not playing poker?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  That is changing as I indicated earlier.  What I enjoy now is spending more time outdoors, trying to become more physically fit and paying attention to things like that.  I like playing tennis, but I am very low key, low maintenance.  I just like hanging out with my girlfriend at home, eating a good meal, going to the movies, and that’s about it.

Pokulator:   Your girlfriend is a little bit older than you, how do you think that impacts your relationship, or is it just about the individual?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Definitely just about the individual and whatever works.  For me, I definitely have more affection for older women because I feel that they are more straight forward and playing fewer games.  Maybe that’s just the result of my experiences with women in their young twenties when I was in my twenties and the frustrations of dating when you are a broke New Yorker.  But, I think it is really just an individual thing.  I met a girlfriend who is the love of my life and she just happens to be older than me.  I know there are a few young guys on tour, younger than me even, who have older girlfriends too and I think it is a standard thing and seems logical to me to work out.  Older women are a little calmer and can appreciate younger men better too.

Pokulator:  You have been very open about being in a relationship, do you ever have to beat off any poker groupies after being on TV and being successful in poker?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Beat off?  No.  No, that’s not me unfortunately.  I still don’t know how I would go about getting laid if I was single.  But, it would probably be a little more fun as a poker player than as a waiter.

Pokulator:  You mentioned being in New York and now you have moved to California, how do you think the coasts contrast each other?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Very drastically.  They are two different worlds and the California lifestyle is something I’m enjoying and I would attribute it to part of the shift of my mentality. As much crap as people talk about LA, I think it’s a city that sort of has it priorities straight in some ways.   It’s not really a city, but has the vibe of having your own space, and it’s about self improvement and being in some kind of harmony with yourself, the world around you, your health, and your food.  Of course there are also big problems with LA.  But, when I go back to New York it just feels unfortunately very oppressive to me now.  Whereas it once formed my identity, the tension that existed in New York I really loved it and thrived on it.  Now it just feels like too much.  There are just too many people confronting you.  There is definitely way too much human interaction in New York and maybe not enough in LA.  But the lack of human interaction suits me well too.  I kind of just like a solitary existence where I compartmentalize with my girlfriend and I and it is just a much more easygoing lifestyle.  You don’t need to confront all of these realities every time that you step out the door.

Pokulator:  With the elections coming up this year are you into politics at all or is there anyone that you like or think would be good for poker?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  I’d like to see Barack Obama win the election, but I’m not political at all.  He just seems like the best person to be in office.

Pokulator: Do you think that the United States is ready to elect a minority President?

Shane "Shaniac" Schleger:  Yes I do.