morgant
01-15-2004, 02:21 AM
The Real Deal
By Fred Bruning
STAFF WRITER
January 13, 2004
Mark Twain once lamented that Americans paid too little attention to poker.
"It is enough to make one ashamed of the species," he said.
Beloved author of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," Twain died in 1910. He should have stuck around. Suddenly, poker is hotter than
July on the Mississippi.
Tonight, Bravo - one of three cable channels regularly covering high-stakes competition - will telecast the sixth and final round of
a "Celebrity Poker Showdown" series intended to produce a "champion" and $100,000 for the champ's favorite charity. At the sprawling
Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., officials say tournament poker revenue is up nearly 350 percent. Online poker is a
hit, and even in the snuggest suburban nooks, couch potatoes are forsaking naps and noshes for heart-pounding rounds of something
called Texas Hold'em.
"It makes your blood pump," said veteran player Joe Giannino, 38, of Farmingville. Mind and body are on full alert during a good
game, agreed Alexander Dinelaris, 35, a playwright living in Brooklyn. "There's the competition, the gambling for fortune, and a
game that takes some sort of skill," he said. "It gives you the best of chess, slot machines and touch football."
Poker-loving Americans - estimates run as high as 80 million - plunk down their chips everywhere from posh California card halls to
college dorms in Suffolk County. "If you ask me, poker is the new extreme sport," said Kathy Raymond, director of poker operations
at Foxwoods, often a site of televised World Poker Tour showdowns. On Web sites, eager players post messages like singles scouting
dates for Saturday night.
"Queens boy looking for low limit Hold'em to play with other poker lovers," one entry said. Another declared: "My name is Mark. I
live in Lakeview, have a wife, 2 kids, a dog, 2 cats, 2 turtles and an iguana who all play poker. One has to sit out when we play
stud. We love Hold'em, Omaha8, and Hi/Lo Stud." An upbeat individual with the tag "brewbro520" proclaimed: "I think Suffolk County
has great potential to become a producer of some of the top players in the world. The more we play together, the better we will
get...."
Tantalized by celebrity players and high-stakes TV tourneys, thousands of novices are saying deal me in. But poker was a favorite
long before anyone thought of programming it on prime time and showing the action from more camera angles than a disputed play in
the NFL.
"The game has been around for a long, long time," said Steve Radulovich, editor in chief of Card Player magazine, based (where
else?) in Las Vegas. "I think the nature of the game is human nature."
In fact, poker has been around since the 1830s. It gained popularity in New Orleans, was played on riverboats and came east by
railroad. Poker was called "the cheating game" almost from the outset, and its slightly scandalous reputation somehow suited the
impetuous spirit of a feisty frontier nation.
"The great American game of poker," Catherine Perry Hargrave called it in her classic 1930 study, "A History of Playing Cards and a
Bibliography of Cards and Gaming," reissued most recently in 2000 by Dover Publications of Mineola.
Dover senior editor Joslyn Pine said the rising popularity of poker may indicate that Americans are looking for new ways to put a
little money on the line during a time of stock market uncertainty, and that TV coverage of tournament poker has capitalized on the
"cheap thrills" of the reality show craze.
"People live vicariously," observed Julie Lengfelder, an expert in the study of leisure at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
"They like to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is going to win big."
Some will contend that tournament poker has as much spectator appeal as snow removal.
But Steve Lipscomb, a former documentary filmmaker and now chief executive of the World Poker Tour, found a way to make televised
poker fan-friendly.
Lipscomb covers games with as many as 16 cameras and thought of placing small, "lipstick"-style videocams around the inside edge of
the table so viewers can see "hole cards" - those lying face down - when players lift corners to take a peek.
The insider's perspective gives TV poker - Lipscomb's WPT cable series on the Travel Channel, ESPN's "World Series of Poker,"
Bravo's celebrity tournaments - an irresistible element of immediacy and audience involvement, promoters say.
"An adult and child could watch," said Hollywood- based Lipscomb, who claimed WPT Texas Hold'em tourneys - in which players get two
hole cards and try to build a winning hand - draw as many as 5 million viewers a week. "A professional poker player is riveted. On
the other hand, a complete novice is going to have a great experience," he said.
Naturally, those in the poker industry say, viewers want to play after watching TV tournaments where prize pools can run into the
millions.
It doesn't hurt that the settings are glitzy, and the productions professional, fast-paced - and hyped as though poker were an
Olympic event.
"From the Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, five celebrities battle it out at the poker table!" boomed an announcer introducing
a recent Bravo "Showdown."
Around the table were actors Ben Affleck, Don Cheadle, David Schwimmer, Willie Garson and Emily Procter.
Comedian Kevin Pollak, wearing a fedora and serving as host, made small talk. There was a quick explanation of Texas Hold'em for the
uninitiated and, after Procter urged her partners to "make a pact" that they would be the "funnest" table at the tournament, the
cards were dealt.
"... A very exciting moment," said Pollak, sitting at an anchor desk with analyst and poker pro Phil Gordon.
At one point, Cheadle seemed in trouble. "If a diamond comes, there's going to be big problems in this hand - big problems for Don,"
said Gordon, off camera.
But Cheadle kept his composure, even as a spectacular waitress in gold hot pants and halter top took drink orders. Affleck, Garson
and Procter folded.
The pot crept to $7,800. Schwimmer considered his hand. "Don, I don't know how you play yet, so...."
"If you pay, you can find out," Cheadle said as the audience whooped at the good-natured nudge. "You know that was love," said
Cheadle to Schwimmer.
At the end of the round, Cheadle, who was playing for an educational enrichment program in Los Angeles, was $8,800 ahead. "He wins a
very good pot," Gordon said. "Especially for the first hand of this tournament."
This may not be the sort of thing that will pack the sports bars and fill Madison Square Garden, but, experts say, the game has an
audience - and one eager to get a little action of its own.
"The reason we've seen such a dramatic increase in the game is primarily because of television exposure in the last year," said Card
Player editor Radulovich.
Cable channel coverage prompted a pokerfest recently in a dormitory on the campus of Stony Brook University. Students modeled their
game after TV poker - a couple of guys dressed like favorite players, one with a wig, another in sunglasses - and included six or
seven people.
"During the Thanksgiving break, me and a bunch of buddies were watching on TV," one student said. "When I got back to school, I
really wanted to play poker. We organized a couple games, almost every day." One evening, the pals asked a young woman, also a
student, to join them. Hours later, she walked away the winner. Her secret: she had watched TV poker all summer. "I cleaned them
out," she said.
Though players said stakes were very low, they were reluctant to be identified because dorm rules forbid gambling. Off-campus, local
law enforcement authorities said, betting on poker is OK as long as players take the pot and the "house" doesn't get a cut. That's
the way it works in the dorm, Stony Brook players said - just a friendly game to pass the time and mimic what they've seen on cable.
"We've been watching it for a while and thought, 'We can do this, too,'" a player said.
How many newcomers are hooked on poker because of television coverage is impossible to tell. Longtime players need no encouragement.
"I don't think we've been affected by the trend of TV," said a mid-Suffolk player named Ray about his poker partners.
But many novices say TV made the difference. "That's why I play," said a neophyte on Long Island, who didn't want to be identified
further.
Meanwhile, promoters hype the game as though it were America's newest national pastime.
They refer to poker as a "sport" and afford top players the kind of reverence usually reserved for 20-game winners. The notion of
poker-as-sport got a boost recently when Fox SportsNet broadcast a tournament and NBC decided to devote two hours to a World Poker
Tour match before the Super Bowl kicks off Feb. 1 (on CBS).
"There is enough drama to treat this as if it was a televised sporting event," said Rick Rodriguez, general manager of the Travel
Channel. "It isn't just a card game. There is much more here. These guys deserve as much attention as pro athletes."
Show-biz types like Affleck - a guest on "Celebrity Poker" and familiar figure at casinos where fiance-in-waiting Jennifer Lopez
sometimes looks on lovingly - have obvious fan appeal. But so do the emerging "athletes" of the game - accomplished players such as
Cycalona "Clonie" Gowen, of Dallas, a blond, married mother of two who has become a hit on the WPT circuit.
"When I sit down with men, new players, new men, all they want to get is my phone number, and go out with me," said Gowen, who added
emphatically that she always says no. "They are distracted. I use it to my advantage."
She may be glamorous, but, when talking about her game, Gowen, 32, sounds like a grizzled veteran conducting a motivational clinic
for minor leaguers.
"In every aspect of life, business or home, poker plays a big part," Gowen said. "You need to be disciplined. You need to be very
disciplined. You have to have an extreme intuition about people." The game is a psychological exercise, she said - figuring who's
bluffing, who's not. "What is going through the players' minds? It's complicated. It's a learning process."
Gowen, named Cycalona because she was born in Florida during rough weather, said discipline, psychology and love of sport are part
of the appeal, for sure. But let's not be naive. Why else does she like poker?
"I like to win money," she said.
Who doesn't?
Nobody plays poker just for fun. Nickels and dimes or wads of green, the payoff is part of the kick. Forever, poker players have
been trying to go home at least a little richer.
Sometimes they get lucky. Sometimes.
Grace Scaccianoce of Commack remembers a poker game she played years ago with women who lived in the same Flushing apartment
building.
"When I got back, my husband said, 'Well, how'd you do?' I said, 'I lost the food money.'" Scaccianoce, 66, recalled. "He said,
'What, are you crazy? Don't you realize you don't go in with your food money? You go in with money you can afford to lose.' I always
remember what he said."
Though she doesn't play anymore, Scaccianoce has fond recollections of those poker games in Queens - the laughs, the exhilaration.
"Matching wits with other people." And for the record: Her late husband, Bill, the family breadwinner in those days, gave her more
money for food. "He was a good guy," Scaccianoce said.
Some say poker is a great equalizer - a game that depends on luck, sure, but on skill, too, and one that does not recognize status
or class.
"I play with judges, doctors, college students," said Mike, who runs what he called a weekly "underground" game on Long Island, and
would allow only his first name to be used. "In this game, it doesn't matter who you are, your credentials or degree. So many
different personalities, it's unbelievable."
Poker can be a social leveler or a social event.
On a recent Saturday evening in Sands Point, a couple threw a poker party.
Dinner was catered and followed a steak house theme. "Big iceberg lettuce salads, steaks, a fish dish, creamed spinach, frizzled
onions, mashed potatoes, really delicious," said Evelyn Bernfeld, who attended the party with her husband, Hal.
After the meal, Bernfeld said, guests sat at three tables. Dealers coached party-goers in Texas Hold'em poker. Three or four hours
later, winners cashed in chips and collected prizes - neat stuff from Sharper Image. There even was a Sharper Image booby prize,
Bernfeld said - an electric nose-hair trimmer.
It was a swell night, Bernfeld said, and, on their way out, guests chatted about who would throw the next poker party. Bernfeld, who
is in the doughnut business with her husband, said she's considering the possibility of a "friendly game" sometime soon - for gifts,
of course, not money. "I'm not a gambler yet," she said.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
By Fred Bruning
STAFF WRITER
January 13, 2004
Mark Twain once lamented that Americans paid too little attention to poker.
"It is enough to make one ashamed of the species," he said.
Beloved author of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," Twain died in 1910. He should have stuck around. Suddenly, poker is hotter than
July on the Mississippi.
Tonight, Bravo - one of three cable channels regularly covering high-stakes competition - will telecast the sixth and final round of
a "Celebrity Poker Showdown" series intended to produce a "champion" and $100,000 for the champ's favorite charity. At the sprawling
Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., officials say tournament poker revenue is up nearly 350 percent. Online poker is a
hit, and even in the snuggest suburban nooks, couch potatoes are forsaking naps and noshes for heart-pounding rounds of something
called Texas Hold'em.
"It makes your blood pump," said veteran player Joe Giannino, 38, of Farmingville. Mind and body are on full alert during a good
game, agreed Alexander Dinelaris, 35, a playwright living in Brooklyn. "There's the competition, the gambling for fortune, and a
game that takes some sort of skill," he said. "It gives you the best of chess, slot machines and touch football."
Poker-loving Americans - estimates run as high as 80 million - plunk down their chips everywhere from posh California card halls to
college dorms in Suffolk County. "If you ask me, poker is the new extreme sport," said Kathy Raymond, director of poker operations
at Foxwoods, often a site of televised World Poker Tour showdowns. On Web sites, eager players post messages like singles scouting
dates for Saturday night.
"Queens boy looking for low limit Hold'em to play with other poker lovers," one entry said. Another declared: "My name is Mark. I
live in Lakeview, have a wife, 2 kids, a dog, 2 cats, 2 turtles and an iguana who all play poker. One has to sit out when we play
stud. We love Hold'em, Omaha8, and Hi/Lo Stud." An upbeat individual with the tag "brewbro520" proclaimed: "I think Suffolk County
has great potential to become a producer of some of the top players in the world. The more we play together, the better we will
get...."
Tantalized by celebrity players and high-stakes TV tourneys, thousands of novices are saying deal me in. But poker was a favorite
long before anyone thought of programming it on prime time and showing the action from more camera angles than a disputed play in
the NFL.
"The game has been around for a long, long time," said Steve Radulovich, editor in chief of Card Player magazine, based (where
else?) in Las Vegas. "I think the nature of the game is human nature."
In fact, poker has been around since the 1830s. It gained popularity in New Orleans, was played on riverboats and came east by
railroad. Poker was called "the cheating game" almost from the outset, and its slightly scandalous reputation somehow suited the
impetuous spirit of a feisty frontier nation.
"The great American game of poker," Catherine Perry Hargrave called it in her classic 1930 study, "A History of Playing Cards and a
Bibliography of Cards and Gaming," reissued most recently in 2000 by Dover Publications of Mineola.
Dover senior editor Joslyn Pine said the rising popularity of poker may indicate that Americans are looking for new ways to put a
little money on the line during a time of stock market uncertainty, and that TV coverage of tournament poker has capitalized on the
"cheap thrills" of the reality show craze.
"People live vicariously," observed Julie Lengfelder, an expert in the study of leisure at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
"They like to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is going to win big."
Some will contend that tournament poker has as much spectator appeal as snow removal.
But Steve Lipscomb, a former documentary filmmaker and now chief executive of the World Poker Tour, found a way to make televised
poker fan-friendly.
Lipscomb covers games with as many as 16 cameras and thought of placing small, "lipstick"-style videocams around the inside edge of
the table so viewers can see "hole cards" - those lying face down - when players lift corners to take a peek.
The insider's perspective gives TV poker - Lipscomb's WPT cable series on the Travel Channel, ESPN's "World Series of Poker,"
Bravo's celebrity tournaments - an irresistible element of immediacy and audience involvement, promoters say.
"An adult and child could watch," said Hollywood- based Lipscomb, who claimed WPT Texas Hold'em tourneys - in which players get two
hole cards and try to build a winning hand - draw as many as 5 million viewers a week. "A professional poker player is riveted. On
the other hand, a complete novice is going to have a great experience," he said.
Naturally, those in the poker industry say, viewers want to play after watching TV tournaments where prize pools can run into the
millions.
It doesn't hurt that the settings are glitzy, and the productions professional, fast-paced - and hyped as though poker were an
Olympic event.
"From the Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, five celebrities battle it out at the poker table!" boomed an announcer introducing
a recent Bravo "Showdown."
Around the table were actors Ben Affleck, Don Cheadle, David Schwimmer, Willie Garson and Emily Procter.
Comedian Kevin Pollak, wearing a fedora and serving as host, made small talk. There was a quick explanation of Texas Hold'em for the
uninitiated and, after Procter urged her partners to "make a pact" that they would be the "funnest" table at the tournament, the
cards were dealt.
"... A very exciting moment," said Pollak, sitting at an anchor desk with analyst and poker pro Phil Gordon.
At one point, Cheadle seemed in trouble. "If a diamond comes, there's going to be big problems in this hand - big problems for Don,"
said Gordon, off camera.
But Cheadle kept his composure, even as a spectacular waitress in gold hot pants and halter top took drink orders. Affleck, Garson
and Procter folded.
The pot crept to $7,800. Schwimmer considered his hand. "Don, I don't know how you play yet, so...."
"If you pay, you can find out," Cheadle said as the audience whooped at the good-natured nudge. "You know that was love," said
Cheadle to Schwimmer.
At the end of the round, Cheadle, who was playing for an educational enrichment program in Los Angeles, was $8,800 ahead. "He wins a
very good pot," Gordon said. "Especially for the first hand of this tournament."
This may not be the sort of thing that will pack the sports bars and fill Madison Square Garden, but, experts say, the game has an
audience - and one eager to get a little action of its own.
"The reason we've seen such a dramatic increase in the game is primarily because of television exposure in the last year," said Card
Player editor Radulovich.
Cable channel coverage prompted a pokerfest recently in a dormitory on the campus of Stony Brook University. Students modeled their
game after TV poker - a couple of guys dressed like favorite players, one with a wig, another in sunglasses - and included six or
seven people.
"During the Thanksgiving break, me and a bunch of buddies were watching on TV," one student said. "When I got back to school, I
really wanted to play poker. We organized a couple games, almost every day." One evening, the pals asked a young woman, also a
student, to join them. Hours later, she walked away the winner. Her secret: she had watched TV poker all summer. "I cleaned them
out," she said.
Though players said stakes were very low, they were reluctant to be identified because dorm rules forbid gambling. Off-campus, local
law enforcement authorities said, betting on poker is OK as long as players take the pot and the "house" doesn't get a cut. That's
the way it works in the dorm, Stony Brook players said - just a friendly game to pass the time and mimic what they've seen on cable.
"We've been watching it for a while and thought, 'We can do this, too,'" a player said.
How many newcomers are hooked on poker because of television coverage is impossible to tell. Longtime players need no encouragement.
"I don't think we've been affected by the trend of TV," said a mid-Suffolk player named Ray about his poker partners.
But many novices say TV made the difference. "That's why I play," said a neophyte on Long Island, who didn't want to be identified
further.
Meanwhile, promoters hype the game as though it were America's newest national pastime.
They refer to poker as a "sport" and afford top players the kind of reverence usually reserved for 20-game winners. The notion of
poker-as-sport got a boost recently when Fox SportsNet broadcast a tournament and NBC decided to devote two hours to a World Poker
Tour match before the Super Bowl kicks off Feb. 1 (on CBS).
"There is enough drama to treat this as if it was a televised sporting event," said Rick Rodriguez, general manager of the Travel
Channel. "It isn't just a card game. There is much more here. These guys deserve as much attention as pro athletes."
Show-biz types like Affleck - a guest on "Celebrity Poker" and familiar figure at casinos where fiance-in-waiting Jennifer Lopez
sometimes looks on lovingly - have obvious fan appeal. But so do the emerging "athletes" of the game - accomplished players such as
Cycalona "Clonie" Gowen, of Dallas, a blond, married mother of two who has become a hit on the WPT circuit.
"When I sit down with men, new players, new men, all they want to get is my phone number, and go out with me," said Gowen, who added
emphatically that she always says no. "They are distracted. I use it to my advantage."
She may be glamorous, but, when talking about her game, Gowen, 32, sounds like a grizzled veteran conducting a motivational clinic
for minor leaguers.
"In every aspect of life, business or home, poker plays a big part," Gowen said. "You need to be disciplined. You need to be very
disciplined. You have to have an extreme intuition about people." The game is a psychological exercise, she said - figuring who's
bluffing, who's not. "What is going through the players' minds? It's complicated. It's a learning process."
Gowen, named Cycalona because she was born in Florida during rough weather, said discipline, psychology and love of sport are part
of the appeal, for sure. But let's not be naive. Why else does she like poker?
"I like to win money," she said.
Who doesn't?
Nobody plays poker just for fun. Nickels and dimes or wads of green, the payoff is part of the kick. Forever, poker players have
been trying to go home at least a little richer.
Sometimes they get lucky. Sometimes.
Grace Scaccianoce of Commack remembers a poker game she played years ago with women who lived in the same Flushing apartment
building.
"When I got back, my husband said, 'Well, how'd you do?' I said, 'I lost the food money.'" Scaccianoce, 66, recalled. "He said,
'What, are you crazy? Don't you realize you don't go in with your food money? You go in with money you can afford to lose.' I always
remember what he said."
Though she doesn't play anymore, Scaccianoce has fond recollections of those poker games in Queens - the laughs, the exhilaration.
"Matching wits with other people." And for the record: Her late husband, Bill, the family breadwinner in those days, gave her more
money for food. "He was a good guy," Scaccianoce said.
Some say poker is a great equalizer - a game that depends on luck, sure, but on skill, too, and one that does not recognize status
or class.
"I play with judges, doctors, college students," said Mike, who runs what he called a weekly "underground" game on Long Island, and
would allow only his first name to be used. "In this game, it doesn't matter who you are, your credentials or degree. So many
different personalities, it's unbelievable."
Poker can be a social leveler or a social event.
On a recent Saturday evening in Sands Point, a couple threw a poker party.
Dinner was catered and followed a steak house theme. "Big iceberg lettuce salads, steaks, a fish dish, creamed spinach, frizzled
onions, mashed potatoes, really delicious," said Evelyn Bernfeld, who attended the party with her husband, Hal.
After the meal, Bernfeld said, guests sat at three tables. Dealers coached party-goers in Texas Hold'em poker. Three or four hours
later, winners cashed in chips and collected prizes - neat stuff from Sharper Image. There even was a Sharper Image booby prize,
Bernfeld said - an electric nose-hair trimmer.
It was a swell night, Bernfeld said, and, on their way out, guests chatted about who would throw the next poker party. Bernfeld, who
is in the doughnut business with her husband, said she's considering the possibility of a "friendly game" sometime soon - for gifts,
of course, not money. "I'm not a gambler yet," she said.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.