Dream Machine
I got together with my Dream Team Poker teammates "Dr. Pauly" McGuire (who appears on my phone contacts list next to the actual M.D.s in my life) and Dan Michalski of Pokerati on Saturday morning at the Bellagio.
We ate breakfast and discussed a few strategic elements of the event we were set to participate in that day, plus a few other issues related to poker, writing, degeneracy and other important aspects of life.
When it came time to settle up the tab, we agreed to gamble for it using my preferred "Price is Right" method, wherein each participant places a blind bid on the amount of the check, and the person who is farthest from the actual number has to pony up. I like this better than "Credit Card Roulette," the way most poker players use to gamble for a meal check, which is a neutral-EV (and boring) style in which one diner's credit card is chosen at random among the group, and the unlucky person must pay.
Most of my gambling friends with whom I regularly dine with will refuse to play "Price is Right" with me, thinking I have an edge, which is probably true, although not for the reasons they think (I don't pay any special attention to menu prices at the beginning of the meal). This time, though, misjudging the cost of Michalski's steak-n-eggs, I overshot the amount by around $20 while my opponents both came within about $5, and I paid.
On that note, I would like to quickly say "fuck you" to Dr. Pauly for writing up more or less the exact same details of the event that I had planned to describe, for doing it at least 24 hours ago and for doing it more thoroughly than I was planning to. This is why he's a professional poker blogger, and I am a mere hack.
To summarize both of our feelings: The event was anchored by a relaxed and fun atmosphere, the production value (see Pauly's picture of the wall displaying every team's jerseys) and organizational level exceeded expectations, and Alex Outhred did a really good job MC'ing the thing. Although the WPT Celebrity Invitational still stands as the most "fun" event of the year, this Dream Team thing comes in a close second. And Mekhi Phifer shows up for both.
The event, as one of the organizers explained at the beginning, is simply "two tournaments in one." There were 144 teams of three people ($1,500+$150 entry fee per team) all competing for two portions of the same prizepool: An individual division that paid about $20K to the person who wound up with all the chips, and a team payout that awarded around $60K to the team that had the lowest point score, determined by whichever two team members made it the farthest (so, 3 points would be the best possible team score). There were no day one strategic adjustments, since team members were not allowed to play at the same table, and I wasn't around on day two to see how things played out using the "time out" system that was in place or any other format-specific dynamics.
The coolest aspect of the event was how it brought poker back to something Pauly and I had both been missing from the game, what he termed "the fun and social aspect." I was even happy to wear the jersey that was provided free with the entry fee, and the whole thing had a kind of light, goofy vibe. Along the way I met a few cool people like Rob Perlman, who works as a software engineer on TV poker productions, a therapist from Texas named Karen (who was on Dan Alspach and JJ Liu's team) and Andy Rich, a poker room manager for various Harrah's properties and a former Indie Music executive. People who wouldn't normally be playing in the same tournament together. Of course, there were plenty of standard issue poker pros playing but they were treading lightly throughout the proceedings.
Basically, it was a much needed injection of levity into a game that is too consumed these days with "learning and chatting" and not enough "gambling and donking." Whereas once upon time, not long ago, many people treated poker like a pure gambling game, it is now hard to find your way onto an online poker site like Full Tilt Poker without also becoming aware of one of the dozens of training sites, learning tools, boot camps and "academies" that are equally (if not more) accessible.
The end result is a game that is more highly skilled on average and thus harder to succeed at for everyone, while being more of an intellectual pursuit (as opposed to a game, a gamble) for players making their first forays into the poker world. A player like me--who lost $1,500 one summer, $20 at a time, playing $1-5 Stud in New Mexico--would probably be discouraged by the know-it-alls in online chat who love to berate and deride players for no logical reason (see my 3/23 entry) long before my credit card was maxed-out that summer of 2000.
Of course, there are a chosen few people succeeding in the current poker environment, such as those who envisioned the "learn, chat and play" marketing ploy and are positioned to absorb more rake dollars as the playing field levels out, fewer players go broke and we inch towards a zero-sum game (or a negative-sum game, or a game that's simply unbeatable). Separate but related are the Phil Hellmuths of the poker world, who sponge up marketing dollars by parlaying their vocal, overly obnoxious table presence into ESPN air time while ultimately making the game more tense and unpleasant for average players by encouraging copycat behavior.
I won't belabor the point much longer, but I now understand exactly what Scott Huff was explaining to me over instant messenger the other day: the game has become too hard for pros and too stressful for amateurs; a change is in order. Events like the Dream Team are a welcome shift, effectively puncturing a hole in the current poker bubble, which is now filled with stale air and an unnatural ponderousness.
We ate breakfast and discussed a few strategic elements of the event we were set to participate in that day, plus a few other issues related to poker, writing, degeneracy and other important aspects of life.
When it came time to settle up the tab, we agreed to gamble for it using my preferred "Price is Right" method, wherein each participant places a blind bid on the amount of the check, and the person who is farthest from the actual number has to pony up. I like this better than "Credit Card Roulette," the way most poker players use to gamble for a meal check, which is a neutral-EV (and boring) style in which one diner's credit card is chosen at random among the group, and the unlucky person must pay.
Most of my gambling friends with whom I regularly dine with will refuse to play "Price is Right" with me, thinking I have an edge, which is probably true, although not for the reasons they think (I don't pay any special attention to menu prices at the beginning of the meal). This time, though, misjudging the cost of Michalski's steak-n-eggs, I overshot the amount by around $20 while my opponents both came within about $5, and I paid.
On that note, I would like to quickly say "fuck you" to Dr. Pauly for writing up more or less the exact same details of the event that I had planned to describe, for doing it at least 24 hours ago and for doing it more thoroughly than I was planning to. This is why he's a professional poker blogger, and I am a mere hack.
To summarize both of our feelings: The event was anchored by a relaxed and fun atmosphere, the production value (see Pauly's picture of the wall displaying every team's jerseys) and organizational level exceeded expectations, and Alex Outhred did a really good job MC'ing the thing. Although the WPT Celebrity Invitational still stands as the most "fun" event of the year, this Dream Team thing comes in a close second. And Mekhi Phifer shows up for both.
The event, as one of the organizers explained at the beginning, is simply "two tournaments in one." There were 144 teams of three people ($1,500+$150 entry fee per team) all competing for two portions of the same prizepool: An individual division that paid about $20K to the person who wound up with all the chips, and a team payout that awarded around $60K to the team that had the lowest point score, determined by whichever two team members made it the farthest (so, 3 points would be the best possible team score). There were no day one strategic adjustments, since team members were not allowed to play at the same table, and I wasn't around on day two to see how things played out using the "time out" system that was in place or any other format-specific dynamics.
The coolest aspect of the event was how it brought poker back to something Pauly and I had both been missing from the game, what he termed "the fun and social aspect." I was even happy to wear the jersey that was provided free with the entry fee, and the whole thing had a kind of light, goofy vibe. Along the way I met a few cool people like Rob Perlman, who works as a software engineer on TV poker productions, a therapist from Texas named Karen (who was on Dan Alspach and JJ Liu's team) and Andy Rich, a poker room manager for various Harrah's properties and a former Indie Music executive. People who wouldn't normally be playing in the same tournament together. Of course, there were plenty of standard issue poker pros playing but they were treading lightly throughout the proceedings.
Basically, it was a much needed injection of levity into a game that is too consumed these days with "learning and chatting" and not enough "gambling and donking." Whereas once upon time, not long ago, many people treated poker like a pure gambling game, it is now hard to find your way onto an online poker site like Full Tilt Poker without also becoming aware of one of the dozens of training sites, learning tools, boot camps and "academies" that are equally (if not more) accessible.
The end result is a game that is more highly skilled on average and thus harder to succeed at for everyone, while being more of an intellectual pursuit (as opposed to a game, a gamble) for players making their first forays into the poker world. A player like me--who lost $1,500 one summer, $20 at a time, playing $1-5 Stud in New Mexico--would probably be discouraged by the know-it-alls in online chat who love to berate and deride players for no logical reason (see my 3/23 entry) long before my credit card was maxed-out that summer of 2000.
Of course, there are a chosen few people succeeding in the current poker environment, such as those who envisioned the "learn, chat and play" marketing ploy and are positioned to absorb more rake dollars as the playing field levels out, fewer players go broke and we inch towards a zero-sum game (or a negative-sum game, or a game that's simply unbeatable). Separate but related are the Phil Hellmuths of the poker world, who sponge up marketing dollars by parlaying their vocal, overly obnoxious table presence into ESPN air time while ultimately making the game more tense and unpleasant for average players by encouraging copycat behavior.
I won't belabor the point much longer, but I now understand exactly what Scott Huff was explaining to me over instant messenger the other day: the game has become too hard for pros and too stressful for amateurs; a change is in order. Events like the Dream Team are a welcome shift, effectively puncturing a hole in the current poker bubble, which is now filled with stale air and an unnatural ponderousness.
posted by Shane Schleger at 12:39 AM
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