EB (left) and Bret with Comedian Mark Curry
Eric Bickel “EB”
Eric Bickel also known as “EB” on the air is a co host of the popular morning drive radio show “The Junkies” in Washington DC on 106.7 FM WJFK. The Junkies air Monday through Friday from 5 til 10am. You can learn all about “The Junkies” morning show on Junkiesradio.com or listen to the show via live stream or podcast on WJFK.com.
EB grew up in the Washington DC suburb of Bowie MD. He attended DeMatha Catholic High School where he played tennis and golf and went to the University of Maryland where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master of Education. Before trying to get a “real” job, EB and his buddies put together a cable access show called “The Sports Junkies” in Bowie around 1995. After a year of weekly TV shows and an article in The Washington Times the boys got an opportunity to do their show for the legendary talk station WJFK in Washington DC. They did weekends for another year before becoming a full time “Junkie” in 1997.
Almost 13 years after doing cable access in Bowie, MD the boys have been killing the radio waves in DC and elsewhere. They’ve been featured in numerous publications including Sports Illustrated, Fortune Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Post Magazine and many others. For three years before taking over in the morning at WHFS 99.1 in Washington DC and Baltimore “The Junkies” were nationally syndicated by Westwood One in evenings across the country. They have been heard on stations in New York City, Miami, Detroit, Kansas City and San Francisco amongst many others. You can also occasionally catch The Junkies on ten episodes of Who’s Number 1 for ESPN classic.
In 2005 “The Junkies” returned to WJFK 106.7 FM in Washington DC to replace the legendary Howard Stern. Since then they have been dominating the male 25-54 demo with their chemistry and hijinks.
EB began playing poker casually shortly after college with friends. Usually just basic nickel, dime stuff with the normal array of goofy games like Hi Chicago, Baseball, Airplane etc. At some point in the early 2000’s EB opened his first online account on Partypoker.com. After one or two deposits of $100 each he was hooked.
Eventually like most other poker geeks EB was playing all the time. He has no impressive poker results to brag about. No online huge scores or WPT poker final tables. In fact EB almost never plays tournaments. He simply grinds micro stakes cash games online, often 12 tabling $50 NL games trying to get better every day. For the last year or so EB has made a challenge to himself to see how far he can go grinding full ring cash games. After one year of some fairly mediocre poker (hence the name) he has turned his initial $400 investment into over $5000. While he’s very proud of his “roll” he’d never admit to his hourly rate (way too embarassing!). If he could ever make the transition he’d simply love to grind cash games at the $200NL level on the side while raising his family with his wife Dina and their two children, Stephen and Megan while continuing his real passion radio with The Junkies.
The Junkies with Magic Johnson
Bret Oliverio
Bret Oliverio is a Producer for The Junkies show heard each morning on 106.7FM WJFK throughout Washington , DC and Virginia. For nearly five years, Bret has contributed to daily on-air segments and has been the backbone of The Junkies show behind the scenes.
In addition, Bret has also hosted various talk radio shows with the likes of Redskins great Charles Mann and former Governor of Maryland , Bob Ehrlich on WJFK. Along with radio, Bret has appeared on television a handful of times, co-hosting Sports Plus on CBS-9 in Washington , DC as well as on Redskins.com TV which also aired on CBS-9.
Bret started playing poker late in 2005.
In May of 2006, Bret was selected to participate against poker professionals Daniel Negreanu, The Grinder, David Williams, Phil Laak, etc and a plethora of celebrities on the Wild Card Poker show which aired on Fox Sports Net nationwide. He walked away with $50,000 and an amazing poker experience. Bret also qualified online for the 2006 WSOP Main Event through a satellite, but unfortunately was felted in just under 4 hours. You can find Bret playing mostly heads-up sit and go’s on Full Tilt. He plays under the screen name breto42. Bret is also a frequent visitor to The Borgata poker room (best poker room in the country).
After winning 50K on the Wild Card Poker TV Show on FSN
Selma looks happy to take this pic with me…haha
