MicroBob
04-19-2004, 11:00 PM
there's nothing really new or surprising here. but a decent article nonetheless imo.....
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
GAME OF STRATEGY, LUCK: Hot Hand
Poker moves from smoky backrooms to trendy TV shows, social gatherings
By JOHN PRZYBYS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Illustration by Anton.
Move over backgammon. Move over Trivial Pursuit and Twister. Move over Parcheesi and pool and Pictionary, and any other game that was, for a moment, the red-hot thing among game-loving Americans.
You've all been replaced by the hottest, hippest, newest game on the block.
Poker.
No, really. That boring card game Dad and Granddad used to play with their buddies at the kitchen table, that game most often associated with the Wild West and riverboat gamblers, is back in a big way.
On television, poker tournaments rival "Law & Order" reruns in their ubiquity. Las Vegas poker rooms are welcoming new regulars, many of them beginners sitting down for their first poker game that doesn't involve a kitchen table or dorm room floor. And stores that sell chips, books and other poker-related stuff are doing huge business.
Why is poker so hot? In a word: television. The tube has transformed poker from a ho-hum, occasional video curiosity into an intriguing spectator sport.
The show many experts credit with spurring poker's resurgence is the "World Poker Tour" series on the Travel Channel, which is completing its second season of weekly telecasts and is the cable network's top-rated series.
"I had a feeling it would do well, but not to this proportion," says series co-host and actor Vincent Van Patten, who has been an avid poker player since childhood.
"This has taken everybody by storm," adds Van Patten, who learned the game from his father, actor Dick Van Patten. "It's shocking, but it's such a great thing, too."
Before TV, poker was "a secret game, because you didn't understand the talent and the guts it takes to be a top-level poker player," Van Patten says. "You couldn't understand that without seeing the cards."
Enter cameras that enable viewers to see the players' hole cards, or the cards each player is dealt, as they appear. Seeing the cards each player holds both ups the drama quotient and enables viewers to watch players' strategize in real time.
"It's like if you could get into the mind of a great pitcher at a baseball game," Van Patten says. "It would make the game of baseball grow tenfold. It would be the most fascinating thing in the world."
Now, he adds, viewers "see it as such a skill game and such a game of guts and courage and knowledge. And that is something that people were unaware of."
"Until they came up with the idea of showing hole cards, poker (on TV) was just exceedingly dull," agrees Anthony Curtis, publisher of The Las Vegas Advisor.
Dramatic considerations aside, televised poker shows also offer novices and amateurs real-time tutorials in how the game is played.
"You can see how analytical it is," Curtis says. "When they put the percentages up on the screen, you can see the way these guys are playing."
Poker watchers also credit Chris Moneymaker, winner of last year's World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe, with spiking interest in the game.
Moneymaker won a seat at poker's premier event by winning an online tournament. "He got smarter as he went along and he was an average guy, but he wasn't known," says Howard Schwartz, marketing director of Gambler's Book Shop, 630 S. 11th St.
As novices and nonplayers followed Moneymaker's Cinderellalike ascent to the tournament's $2.5 million grand prize, "people began to say, `Hey, I can do that. I can bluff. I can be patient with hands. I can say `all in' as well as he can.' " Schwartz says.
"It's a very simple game to learn and a very tough one to master," Schwartz adds. "That's been said 75 different ways, but it's true."
Poker requires luck, skill, strategy and an ability to read other people, Van Patten says. "But, at any level, poker is very social and it can be a lot of fun."
Garrett Okahara, director of poker operations at The Orleans, 4500 W. Tropicana Ave., sees it every day.
Some of the regulars at the casino's poker room have been playing together for years, he says. "It's kind of a getaway. It's a social thing, just to get out of the house and, hopefully, win a little money."
Butch Davenport of Las Vegas has been playing poker for at least 20 years and now plays most days of the week at The Orleans. But he says newcomers shouldn't feel intimidated by poker veterans.
"Sit down and test the waters, because most poker players are all very friendly and very helpful," he says. "So are the dealers."
Debbie Reale of Las Vegas played her first poker room game about three years ago, and admits she was "terrified" the first time she entered a poker room. Now she plays regularly at The Orleans.
"It's a relatively inexpensive form of entertainment," she says. "It keeps your mind alert and it's fun. You meet a lot of people."
Poker also is appealing, Reale says, because it's the only casino game that's played player-to-player, and not against the house.
Okahara says most of the new players he has been seeing during the past six months or so are men between the ages of 21 and 30.
Joan Bryan, director of marketing for United States Playing Card Co., a Cincinnati company that manufactures cards and card-playing accessories for casinos and the public, says her company is researching who today's new poker players are.
"We're seeing anecdotally that teenagers are playing, especially male teens. And, then, there are some women that are starting to play the game," Bryan says.
"The core is still that 25-to-49-year-old male, but there are new entrants to the sport, particularly younger males," she adds.
Whoever they are and however long they've been playing, poker fans aren't averse to buying whatever it takes to learn and refine their games.
Schwartz estimates that poker-related sales at Gambler's Book Shop have increased about 30 percent during the past year or so.
Most players are seeking "instructional things," he says.
"All of a sudden we're seeing DVDs and videos and strategy charts and books written for tournament players," Schwartz says.
Wendy Rock, manager of Gamblers General Store, 800 S. Main St., says sales of books, chips, table layouts and other poker-related items at her store have jumped 75 percent during the past six months.
"It used to be that we'd get more people wanting tables and slot machines and things like that or souvenir items," she says. "Now it's like we can't even produce chips fast enough."
Bryan says her company also has seen a "huge increase" in sales of both playing cards and poker chips.
"We don't sell more chips than cards, but the gap between them is narrowing," she says, estimating chip sales this year as double or triple those of last year.
Local poker rooms also are benefiting from poker's newfound cool. Okahara, for instance, estimates that The Orleans poker room is "probably 75 percent busier than we were six months ago."
"Certainly, tournaments have gotten a lot more popular," he says, "and with that comes a lot of new players who end up getting their feet wet playing in tournaments and eventually start playing live-action games."
In tournaments, players receive a specified number of chips for a buy-in fee that can be as low as $25. Players then play until they run out of chips or win a portion of the prize money.
Because entrants play for chips and not for money, a tournament offers a less intimidating and financially less risky way for a novice to transition into live games.
Low-limit games serve the same purpose, Okahara says. For example, he notes, The Orleans offers low-limit hold'em games with minimum bets of $2 and maximum bets of $4.
"That's about the lowest limit you can find, and it's basically for the new players, so they can get into that game with a smaller buy-in," Okahara says. "The limits are lower, so they don't have to risk a lot of money to have that initial experience playing in a live game."
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
GAME OF STRATEGY, LUCK: Hot Hand
Poker moves from smoky backrooms to trendy TV shows, social gatherings
By JOHN PRZYBYS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Illustration by Anton.
Move over backgammon. Move over Trivial Pursuit and Twister. Move over Parcheesi and pool and Pictionary, and any other game that was, for a moment, the red-hot thing among game-loving Americans.
You've all been replaced by the hottest, hippest, newest game on the block.
Poker.
No, really. That boring card game Dad and Granddad used to play with their buddies at the kitchen table, that game most often associated with the Wild West and riverboat gamblers, is back in a big way.
On television, poker tournaments rival "Law & Order" reruns in their ubiquity. Las Vegas poker rooms are welcoming new regulars, many of them beginners sitting down for their first poker game that doesn't involve a kitchen table or dorm room floor. And stores that sell chips, books and other poker-related stuff are doing huge business.
Why is poker so hot? In a word: television. The tube has transformed poker from a ho-hum, occasional video curiosity into an intriguing spectator sport.
The show many experts credit with spurring poker's resurgence is the "World Poker Tour" series on the Travel Channel, which is completing its second season of weekly telecasts and is the cable network's top-rated series.
"I had a feeling it would do well, but not to this proportion," says series co-host and actor Vincent Van Patten, who has been an avid poker player since childhood.
"This has taken everybody by storm," adds Van Patten, who learned the game from his father, actor Dick Van Patten. "It's shocking, but it's such a great thing, too."
Before TV, poker was "a secret game, because you didn't understand the talent and the guts it takes to be a top-level poker player," Van Patten says. "You couldn't understand that without seeing the cards."
Enter cameras that enable viewers to see the players' hole cards, or the cards each player is dealt, as they appear. Seeing the cards each player holds both ups the drama quotient and enables viewers to watch players' strategize in real time.
"It's like if you could get into the mind of a great pitcher at a baseball game," Van Patten says. "It would make the game of baseball grow tenfold. It would be the most fascinating thing in the world."
Now, he adds, viewers "see it as such a skill game and such a game of guts and courage and knowledge. And that is something that people were unaware of."
"Until they came up with the idea of showing hole cards, poker (on TV) was just exceedingly dull," agrees Anthony Curtis, publisher of The Las Vegas Advisor.
Dramatic considerations aside, televised poker shows also offer novices and amateurs real-time tutorials in how the game is played.
"You can see how analytical it is," Curtis says. "When they put the percentages up on the screen, you can see the way these guys are playing."
Poker watchers also credit Chris Moneymaker, winner of last year's World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe, with spiking interest in the game.
Moneymaker won a seat at poker's premier event by winning an online tournament. "He got smarter as he went along and he was an average guy, but he wasn't known," says Howard Schwartz, marketing director of Gambler's Book Shop, 630 S. 11th St.
As novices and nonplayers followed Moneymaker's Cinderellalike ascent to the tournament's $2.5 million grand prize, "people began to say, `Hey, I can do that. I can bluff. I can be patient with hands. I can say `all in' as well as he can.' " Schwartz says.
"It's a very simple game to learn and a very tough one to master," Schwartz adds. "That's been said 75 different ways, but it's true."
Poker requires luck, skill, strategy and an ability to read other people, Van Patten says. "But, at any level, poker is very social and it can be a lot of fun."
Garrett Okahara, director of poker operations at The Orleans, 4500 W. Tropicana Ave., sees it every day.
Some of the regulars at the casino's poker room have been playing together for years, he says. "It's kind of a getaway. It's a social thing, just to get out of the house and, hopefully, win a little money."
Butch Davenport of Las Vegas has been playing poker for at least 20 years and now plays most days of the week at The Orleans. But he says newcomers shouldn't feel intimidated by poker veterans.
"Sit down and test the waters, because most poker players are all very friendly and very helpful," he says. "So are the dealers."
Debbie Reale of Las Vegas played her first poker room game about three years ago, and admits she was "terrified" the first time she entered a poker room. Now she plays regularly at The Orleans.
"It's a relatively inexpensive form of entertainment," she says. "It keeps your mind alert and it's fun. You meet a lot of people."
Poker also is appealing, Reale says, because it's the only casino game that's played player-to-player, and not against the house.
Okahara says most of the new players he has been seeing during the past six months or so are men between the ages of 21 and 30.
Joan Bryan, director of marketing for United States Playing Card Co., a Cincinnati company that manufactures cards and card-playing accessories for casinos and the public, says her company is researching who today's new poker players are.
"We're seeing anecdotally that teenagers are playing, especially male teens. And, then, there are some women that are starting to play the game," Bryan says.
"The core is still that 25-to-49-year-old male, but there are new entrants to the sport, particularly younger males," she adds.
Whoever they are and however long they've been playing, poker fans aren't averse to buying whatever it takes to learn and refine their games.
Schwartz estimates that poker-related sales at Gambler's Book Shop have increased about 30 percent during the past year or so.
Most players are seeking "instructional things," he says.
"All of a sudden we're seeing DVDs and videos and strategy charts and books written for tournament players," Schwartz says.
Wendy Rock, manager of Gamblers General Store, 800 S. Main St., says sales of books, chips, table layouts and other poker-related items at her store have jumped 75 percent during the past six months.
"It used to be that we'd get more people wanting tables and slot machines and things like that or souvenir items," she says. "Now it's like we can't even produce chips fast enough."
Bryan says her company also has seen a "huge increase" in sales of both playing cards and poker chips.
"We don't sell more chips than cards, but the gap between them is narrowing," she says, estimating chip sales this year as double or triple those of last year.
Local poker rooms also are benefiting from poker's newfound cool. Okahara, for instance, estimates that The Orleans poker room is "probably 75 percent busier than we were six months ago."
"Certainly, tournaments have gotten a lot more popular," he says, "and with that comes a lot of new players who end up getting their feet wet playing in tournaments and eventually start playing live-action games."
In tournaments, players receive a specified number of chips for a buy-in fee that can be as low as $25. Players then play until they run out of chips or win a portion of the prize money.
Because entrants play for chips and not for money, a tournament offers a less intimidating and financially less risky way for a novice to transition into live games.
Low-limit games serve the same purpose, Okahara says. For example, he notes, The Orleans offers low-limit hold'em games with minimum bets of $2 and maximum bets of $4.
"That's about the lowest limit you can find, and it's basically for the new players, so they can get into that game with a smaller buy-in," Okahara says. "The limits are lower, so they don't have to risk a lot of money to have that initial experience playing in a live game."