Cubswin
09-28-2004, 12:28 AM
Not sure if this has been posted already....
link (http://www.ajc.com/news/content/sports/0904/27poker.html)
Poker studs: Cable TV helps make stars of card players
By STEVE HUMMER
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/26/04
Two words say it all. Just two little words are required to conclusively prove the modern world is mad beyond the reach of any medication.
Poker groupies.
Yes, we are talking All-In Annies, camp followers of the card-flopping traveling show that is high stakes professional poker. Imagine, the clan of casino moles thrust into cable TV stardom may now face the same kind of temptation as an NBA player.
"They [groupies] are there, but I don't pay attention to any of them," said Kennesaw's Josh Arieh, a local poker pro who reaffirmed his allegiance to his wife and two kids. Good thing, too, because his allure increased significantly since he claimed $2.5 million for a third-place finish in the most recent World Series of Poker.
He tries to explain the attraction, the magnetic pull of a man who wears sunglasses indoors and has finally found a profitable use for math: "It's very public that poker players throw money around. Why wouldn't there be [groupies]? If I were a girl, I'd be out there trying to find a poker player before I'd try to find a football player."
Still not convinced? Try two more words on for size.
Poker agent.
Such a being does exist, in Minneapolis of all precincts. Brian Balsbaugh saw something while he watched the endless hours of the World Series of Poker on ESPN. Something big, "a once-in-a-decade opportunity to get in on the beginnings of a pop culture fad."
He would put aside his PGA and LPGA client list and sign up a dozen of the most promising of these knights and ladies of the green felt table. Balsbaugh is certain that corporate America is eager to splash its various logos across this everyman's game. So much so that he would dare mention Texas Hold 'Em poker in the same breath with a sports marketing behemoth.
"Sports sponsorship pretty much follows the same track," he said. "First, there are products within the industry [in this case, chips and cards]. Then, along comes alcohol and tobacco, which is where we're at now. Then it all goes more mainstream — like NASCAR."
Ratings are reality
Poker is hot, it's hip, it's spreading like a virus, it's . . . sexy?
With the World Series of Poker just finishing its endless ESPN replay, with other poker programming filling time on such outlets as the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour and Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown, the backroom game has exploded into the living room.
It is getting TV ratings of 2.2, translating to 2.5 million households for the taped World Series final Sept. 14
"It combines two very strong elements of American society," said Dan Harrington, one of the top players in the land. "There is the whole reality TV concept along with people's penchant for gambling. Combine them both, it's a perfect storm."
Harrington once asked an ESPN executive how the cable network could possibly keep showing the same program over and over and over again. "And he told me, 'Well, it still beats hockey,' " he said. True enough, the overall rating for World Series of Poker (1.5 million households) was nearly four times the numbers for the NHL on ESPN (420,000 households) during the 2003-04 season.
There must be a little Maverick in everyone.
Pop culture connection
Three developments were crucial to the poker boom. The first was settling upon Texas Hold 'Em, a high stakes, go-for-broke game in which players fill out their hands on five common cards. Next was the invention of the camera capable of showing the players' two hole cards, essential to involving the audience in the action. Perhaps most important was Chris Moneymaker, the divinely named novice who won the 2003 World Series. He would seed the poker's populist illusion.
"I could never have predicted it would ever be this big," said Mike Antinoro, the producer of the ESPN poker programming. "It hit a nerve with pop culture.
"On our air, we never call poker a sport. It embodies a lot of things. It's sport. It's one-on-one, mano a mano. Who can put all their cards on the table? Who can out-think the other guy? Who can risk everything for a big reward?"
A byproduct of the popularity is the cult of celebrity that has enveloped the players, turning people whose only physical outlet is stacking chips into quasi-sports stars.
They're on TV more than Oprah. From the cool, calculating Phil Ivey, to the effervescent Annie Duke to the bearded, long-haired Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (whose nickname has yet to attract a righteous lightning bolt).
Harrington is a 58-year-old mortgage broker whose speculative prowess has made him a success in real estate and the stock market. He had been playing high stakes poker for a couple of decades in mostly quiet anonymity. Now, he and the trademark bright green, cockeyed Boston Red Sox hat he wears have become highly recognizable.
"When I won the World Series in 1995, there were 40 or 50 people in world who knew the world-class players. We were under-rated then. Now we're overrated."
Arriving for another tournament, Harrington walked through the Atlantic City airport last week and was greeted by several fans. He found himself wondering, "Are you people watching poker on TV all the time? Get a life."
Not the bad boy
Like all good reality programming, poker on TV depends upon its diverse personalities. Some players come off better than others.
True, placing third in the World Series was a tremendous life-changing experience at age 29 for Arieh. The one-time courier has hit it big. His wife quit her job, they moved to a new house near the Marietta Country Club, he bought a new car and started up his own poker school to teach the fine points at $1,500 per five-class bloc.
It also changed who he was. With a couple of outbursts during the World Series telecast, Arieh was painted as the bad guy in this little drama. To hear the commentators tell it, Arieh was the personification of an ingrown toenail.
"All my life I've been a nice guy," said Arieh, who came of age at Druid Hills High School. "I've been the cool guy, the guy everybody likes. Then after this one show, I go to a poker message board on the Internet and the first thing I see is about Josh Arieh's behavior. Then I read another one. Then I read another one. And all of a sudden there are thousands of people out there who think I'm the biggest [jerk] they've ever seen on TV.
"It really bothered me.
"What they don't understand is that's not me. That's a little bit of me. I try to portray an image at the table that people don't want to play with. I'm sending a signal across to everybody that if you play a big pot with me, it's going to be ugly. And it worked. People were afraid to play hands with me after that."
Mark down Arieh as another celebrity who says he is misunderstood.
Now that a card game once considered the playground of scoundrels has achieved mainstream acceptance, now that its best practitioners are poised to compete for the cover of People magazine, where might poker go from here?
"They are talking about forming a league, like the PGA Tour," Harrington said.
And the next stop? Three more words sure to strain the bounds of sanity:
Poker players union.
link (http://www.ajc.com/news/content/sports/0904/27poker.html)
Poker studs: Cable TV helps make stars of card players
By STEVE HUMMER
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/26/04
Two words say it all. Just two little words are required to conclusively prove the modern world is mad beyond the reach of any medication.
Poker groupies.
Yes, we are talking All-In Annies, camp followers of the card-flopping traveling show that is high stakes professional poker. Imagine, the clan of casino moles thrust into cable TV stardom may now face the same kind of temptation as an NBA player.
"They [groupies] are there, but I don't pay attention to any of them," said Kennesaw's Josh Arieh, a local poker pro who reaffirmed his allegiance to his wife and two kids. Good thing, too, because his allure increased significantly since he claimed $2.5 million for a third-place finish in the most recent World Series of Poker.
He tries to explain the attraction, the magnetic pull of a man who wears sunglasses indoors and has finally found a profitable use for math: "It's very public that poker players throw money around. Why wouldn't there be [groupies]? If I were a girl, I'd be out there trying to find a poker player before I'd try to find a football player."
Still not convinced? Try two more words on for size.
Poker agent.
Such a being does exist, in Minneapolis of all precincts. Brian Balsbaugh saw something while he watched the endless hours of the World Series of Poker on ESPN. Something big, "a once-in-a-decade opportunity to get in on the beginnings of a pop culture fad."
He would put aside his PGA and LPGA client list and sign up a dozen of the most promising of these knights and ladies of the green felt table. Balsbaugh is certain that corporate America is eager to splash its various logos across this everyman's game. So much so that he would dare mention Texas Hold 'Em poker in the same breath with a sports marketing behemoth.
"Sports sponsorship pretty much follows the same track," he said. "First, there are products within the industry [in this case, chips and cards]. Then, along comes alcohol and tobacco, which is where we're at now. Then it all goes more mainstream — like NASCAR."
Ratings are reality
Poker is hot, it's hip, it's spreading like a virus, it's . . . sexy?
With the World Series of Poker just finishing its endless ESPN replay, with other poker programming filling time on such outlets as the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour and Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown, the backroom game has exploded into the living room.
It is getting TV ratings of 2.2, translating to 2.5 million households for the taped World Series final Sept. 14
"It combines two very strong elements of American society," said Dan Harrington, one of the top players in the land. "There is the whole reality TV concept along with people's penchant for gambling. Combine them both, it's a perfect storm."
Harrington once asked an ESPN executive how the cable network could possibly keep showing the same program over and over and over again. "And he told me, 'Well, it still beats hockey,' " he said. True enough, the overall rating for World Series of Poker (1.5 million households) was nearly four times the numbers for the NHL on ESPN (420,000 households) during the 2003-04 season.
There must be a little Maverick in everyone.
Pop culture connection
Three developments were crucial to the poker boom. The first was settling upon Texas Hold 'Em, a high stakes, go-for-broke game in which players fill out their hands on five common cards. Next was the invention of the camera capable of showing the players' two hole cards, essential to involving the audience in the action. Perhaps most important was Chris Moneymaker, the divinely named novice who won the 2003 World Series. He would seed the poker's populist illusion.
"I could never have predicted it would ever be this big," said Mike Antinoro, the producer of the ESPN poker programming. "It hit a nerve with pop culture.
"On our air, we never call poker a sport. It embodies a lot of things. It's sport. It's one-on-one, mano a mano. Who can put all their cards on the table? Who can out-think the other guy? Who can risk everything for a big reward?"
A byproduct of the popularity is the cult of celebrity that has enveloped the players, turning people whose only physical outlet is stacking chips into quasi-sports stars.
They're on TV more than Oprah. From the cool, calculating Phil Ivey, to the effervescent Annie Duke to the bearded, long-haired Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (whose nickname has yet to attract a righteous lightning bolt).
Harrington is a 58-year-old mortgage broker whose speculative prowess has made him a success in real estate and the stock market. He had been playing high stakes poker for a couple of decades in mostly quiet anonymity. Now, he and the trademark bright green, cockeyed Boston Red Sox hat he wears have become highly recognizable.
"When I won the World Series in 1995, there were 40 or 50 people in world who knew the world-class players. We were under-rated then. Now we're overrated."
Arriving for another tournament, Harrington walked through the Atlantic City airport last week and was greeted by several fans. He found himself wondering, "Are you people watching poker on TV all the time? Get a life."
Not the bad boy
Like all good reality programming, poker on TV depends upon its diverse personalities. Some players come off better than others.
True, placing third in the World Series was a tremendous life-changing experience at age 29 for Arieh. The one-time courier has hit it big. His wife quit her job, they moved to a new house near the Marietta Country Club, he bought a new car and started up his own poker school to teach the fine points at $1,500 per five-class bloc.
It also changed who he was. With a couple of outbursts during the World Series telecast, Arieh was painted as the bad guy in this little drama. To hear the commentators tell it, Arieh was the personification of an ingrown toenail.
"All my life I've been a nice guy," said Arieh, who came of age at Druid Hills High School. "I've been the cool guy, the guy everybody likes. Then after this one show, I go to a poker message board on the Internet and the first thing I see is about Josh Arieh's behavior. Then I read another one. Then I read another one. And all of a sudden there are thousands of people out there who think I'm the biggest [jerk] they've ever seen on TV.
"It really bothered me.
"What they don't understand is that's not me. That's a little bit of me. I try to portray an image at the table that people don't want to play with. I'm sending a signal across to everybody that if you play a big pot with me, it's going to be ugly. And it worked. People were afraid to play hands with me after that."
Mark down Arieh as another celebrity who says he is misunderstood.
Now that a card game once considered the playground of scoundrels has achieved mainstream acceptance, now that its best practitioners are poised to compete for the cover of People magazine, where might poker go from here?
"They are talking about forming a league, like the PGA Tour," Harrington said.
And the next stop? Three more words sure to strain the bounds of sanity:
Poker players union.