YoH ViraL, poker coach and YouTuber

Who is YoH ViraL ?

YoHViraL, whose real name is Johan Guilbert, is a professional poker player living in Malta and is particularly active on social networks and on his Twitch and YouTube channels. The Frenchman broadcasts his sessions of poker tournaments on the Internet every Sunday evening in a programme he has named RaD-YoH Poker. Once his games are over, it is not uncommon to see the 30-year-old indulging in a few hands of blackjack or betting at the roulette wheel on the live gaming tables of online casinos.

World vice-champion at the 2019 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, the cash-game specialist has been coaching poker since 2016 via a website recently renamed PokerPro. YoH ViraL has conquered a new audience, not necessarily familiar with the world of poker, in the space of just a few years.

YoH ViraL's journey

Gambling, Johan has fallen into it since his early childhood. "I started with chess and then I tried Magic: The Gathering before swimming in Esport as a teenager, says the Maltese resident. I played a lot of video games, especially Dawn of War from the age of 15 to 18." With a Bac L in his pocket, the young man from Sarreguemines in Moselle joined a radio school in Paris. "For 2 years, I discovered the capital and I lived a bit of the high life, continues YoH ViraL. To finance and apply the concepts I learned at school, I landed a part-time fixed-term contract at Goom Radio at the same time as my studies. My ambition at the time was to become a radio host. It was the talk show that did matter, the free antennas, the phone hoaxes, I enjoyed it."

The beginnings of YoH ViraL in gambling

It was at the age of 20 that the young man discovered poker. "It was fashionable at the time. At first, I played small games with friends and then I moved to land-based casinos. I learned to defend myself against regulars, I frequented the cash-game tables of Parisian gambling circles before moving to Italy, to Sardinia to be more precise." YoH ViraL made its debut as a professional player in 2010 before moving to the island of Malta with the big French tournament players of the time. He joined a poker lat-share in 2012 and moved to live tournaments in Europe. "I was playing much too expensive games compared to my bankroll but I gained a lot of experience and made a year's profit of nearly €90,000." For 3 years, the player devotes himself body and soul to online cash-game and goes to Las Vegas in 2015 to play cash-game tables with $25/$50 limits. "At the end of 2015, I made my first month's profit in six figures," confesses YoH.

Everything will follow very quickly afterwards: "I joined the programme La Maison du Bluff on NRJ12 as a coach, my Twitch channel was a great success, i made the biggest live win there by winning a big international tournament, then PMU recruited me into its Pro Team". Everything smiles to the ambitious Frenchman who launches his own poker coaching site in April 2016 and scours the live circuit with PMU. Once its two years of sponsorship over, YoH ViraL returns to the cash-game almost exclusively while developing its site, its social networks and its Twitch and YouTube channels. In 2018, he is one of the first French to show live online casino on Twitch. "Initially, I clicked a bit by chance on the Casino section of the poker room where I was playing after a session, explains the streamer. I started chatting with the dealers, interacting with the viewers without delay and it was a lot of fun..." Since then, it's not uncommon to see the expatriate playing roulette or blackjack on the live gaming tables. "Unlike poker, playing at an online casino is bound to lose in the long run, says YoH. It's important to be preventive when it comes to gambling. Play only the money you are prepared to lose, online casino must remain an entertainment."

YoH ViraL on the Internet

Lives on Twitch

According to the SullyGnome website analysing Twitch statistics, the YoH ViraL channel was created on 22 February 2015 and has nearly 69,000 followers. With more than 2.2 million cumulative views, it is the most watched French poker streamer. It must be said that it is one of the very first to have decided to broadcast its online poker sessions, with a delay, on the streaming platform. With an average of a thousand spectators at each live session, YoH ViraL has won over a loyal community of fans of the famous card game.

YoH ViraL on YouTube

In parallel to its activity on Twitch, YoH ViraL has developed its YouTube channel. Launched in October 2006, it has 136,000 subscribers. The channel now hosts best-of of its live sessions but also different Vlogs about its travels in Europe and the United States or about experiences with friends.

YoH ViraL on social networks

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat ... over the years, YoH ViraL has become omnipresent on various social networks, evolving into one of the first influencers of French poker. Dream destinations, luxury objects, daily life, the thirty year old hides nothing from his life as a professional poker player and his female entourage. Nearly 60,000 people follow him on his Instagram account.

The poker coaching site of YoH ViraL

Since April 2016, YoH ViraL has been offering both amateur and experienced players the opportunity to perfect their poker skills via coaching videos available on its renamed PokerPro.fr platform. Surrounded by professional tournament and cash-game players, YoH ViraL offers advice on how to progress and "become a real poker winner". For beginners and experienced players alike, various training programmes are available on the YoH ViraL coaching website.

Projects and the future

For several years now, everything has been a success for the entrepreneur. So how far will YoH ViraL go? The young man is swarming with projects for 2021. "I'm planning to increase Vlogs content for my YouTube channel, he says, but also collaborations with other YouTubers. I'm going to continue to recruit professional players as coaches for my site and thus perpetuate the platform as a reference in poker coaching. Finally, I hope to resume travelling as soon as possible and the live circuit. My goal is to play the highstakes tournaments at 25,000 and 50,000 euros entry fee." A meteoric rise for the former radio host.

Useful links

Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/yoh_viral

YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/YoHViraL

Twitter : https://twitter.com/YoHViral

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/yohviral/